


Hiraeth

by Allurasgrace



Category: Thundercats (2011)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23115697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allurasgrace/pseuds/Allurasgrace
Summary: A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return; the grief for the lost places of your past.Leopara and the rest of the Thundercats have only one goal: to stop Mumm-Ra.
Relationships: Lion-O/Original Female Character
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	1. The Eye of Evil

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I edited chapter one a bit, mostly the conversations with Jaga! I wasn't quite happy with them and wanted to fix them a bit, so I hope you enjoy!

Mornings were Leopara's favorite time, when the early sun shed gentle light through the high windows of the library to softly illuminate the texts. And in the library she liked to be, if not to read and study, then to enjoy the quiet in relative peace.

But not this morning. 

Today was Prince Lion-O's bonding ceremony with the Sword of Omens, a test to see if it would accept him as its next bearer. As Jaga's apprentice, the sorceress who would someday advise Lion-O when he was king- as much as she could- she was to be present. It was a decision agreed upon by Jaga and even the King himself.

She and Jaga walked through the shelves in quiet, undisturbed by the clerics and scholars getting an early start to their days. How she would have enjoyed finding all the scrolls of arcanum she could get her paws on and spend the entire day nestled in their presence instead… this entire day had her fur standing on end painfully, an electric, unsettled jitter.

"-ara?"

The sound of Jaga's calm voice broke Leopara's reverie. With a shake of her head, she turned her gaze away from the shelves of tomes and scrolls. "I'm sorry, Jaga. I got distracted."

He stared at her for another moment, his gaze calm. Blinking, he turned his attention back towards the path they walked to their antechamber. "It is alright, child." he said sagely. "You have had a lot on your mind, recently."

Leopara reached up, brushing her fingertips against the fur of her cheek. "Yeah… I suppose so. I woke up with this… _feeling."_

Turning to nod to her, Jaga opened the door to the turret and led her inside. 

Sheer curtains of a light, faded blue gently waved in the breeze dancing in through the window. There were a couple of sitting chairs- what else would chairs be for, if not sitting?- and a small round table on a regal, circular rug, fluere patterns decorating it. A couple of shelves carved to fit snugly into the curve of the round walls decorated the side opposite the chairs, and in between was simply empty space. It was a place they came often to study the principles of magic in quiet, undisturbed contemplation and without danger of distractions interrupting, and restricting any harm wild currents of magic could cause.

With a swish of his cloak, Jaga smoothly sat down in one of the chairs. Without needing to be told, Leopara sat down as well, carefully sweeping her skirt forward. "Tell me, Leopara, about this feeling?"

It was difficult to explain. She fiddled with the satiny silk fabric of her dress while struggling for a tangible explanation.

"I… I just woke up with this feeling, like everything is about to…" she raised her hands, arching her fingers until they strained, and struggled against an invisible object. "... end? Or just… change?" she added, confused.

With a calm blink, Jaga reached out and grabbed her hand. Leopara relaxed as his calm and collected composure washed over her. It was like… cool water on a hot summer day. It reminded her of her childhood, the time before she was Jaga's apprentice she remembered seldom of. 

Like the water spared her from the heat, Jaga's calmness spared her from the dark claw of worry and anxiety wriggling within her.

"It is alright, child. You possess the unique and keen ability to sense and feel others emotions as though they were your own. It is natural that anxieties like this would affect you so."

Leopara nodded. "Thank you, Jaga. It's like… a static in the air. I can just feel it all around."

As he usually did with this explanation, Jaga nodded. 

"While many fear change, it can be a good thing and is often necessary. You needn't worry, child." 

She nodded again, although the claw of doubt manifested itself once again with cold certainty.

"This change won't."

It was only because this was Jaga, who raised her and encouraged her to speak her thoughts to him all her life, and listened to her, _really_ listened, she said this.

And for a moment, she saw worry cross his expression.

"Hm…" he stroked his long white beard. "I am afraid, my apprentice, there is very little either you or I can do, save for watch. Perhaps an opportunity will present itself to affect this change?" he proposed.

 _You know something you're not telling me, don't you, Jaga?_ Leopara smiled for his sake. "You're right. Thank you, Jaga."

"Of course, child." He smiled back at her. With a glance towards the window, his expression deep in thought, Jaga abruptly announced, "Ah, I am afraid I have a few matters to attend that slipped my mind. Please, enjoy the rest of your morning." He stood, and so did Leopara, her brows furrowing.

 _So there is…_ that confirmed it for her. Jaga may be old, even ancient, but he was not forgetful; his mind was as clear and sharp as a still pond filled with glacial waters. Her words had unsettled Jaga. He knew something about this feeling she did not, but did not wish for her to know.

Jaga paused in the doorway, his cloak billowing around him. "Ah, do not be late." he said in jest. More seriously, "I look forward to formally introducing you to the prince."

"I won't," she promised Jaga.

With only a parting smile, he left.

She stood there, simply watching and feeling… hurt. Did he not trust her with what he knew?

Finally, with a sigh, she made her way out into the library. 

_"Please, enjoy the rest of your morning."_

It was only because Jaga asked, that she surrounded herself in the comfort of her scrolls, peering over them but somehow not retaining a word or rune that she read.

* * *

The bells rung twice, loud and clear throughout all of Thundera so even an errant prince could hear them. King Claudus stood, his tense muscles coiled as if to pace, but he restrained himself, instead broiling in frustration and disappointment.

Leopara was not the target of his emotions, but she wanted to wilt from the intensity in which he projected himself. Around someone as imposing and strong-willed as the King, she found it difficult to let their emotions part around her, rather than sweeping her away in a powerful current.

Right now, it was taking all her concentration to stay composed.

She kept her gaze, like the others, fixed on the far end of the marble hall, eyes on one of the many intertwined columns on the other side of the darkened Thundercats insignia emblazoned on the floor.

Was the intensity of the King all her anxieties had been about?

Never before had she realised the depths of how unobtrusive the clerics' emotions were. If only she could close herself off from their emotions.

Leopara glanced down at Jaga, who sat calmly and patiently with his staff in hand. Prince Tygra, across from Jaga to the right of King Claudus, looked bored to death, but relaxed and maybe even a little smug. 

She had heard many stories about the princes, mostly from Jaga, but even the clerics gossiped, and she heard what the commoners said when she wandered around Thundera to enjoy the sun and breeze. 

Many felt that he felt he should be king, being the oldest even if not by blood. That he had his head on his shoulders, while Lion-O's was dreaming in the clouds.

She wasn't sure what she believed or if it mattered.

With a deep huff, something in the King snapped a little. "He knows how important today is! Where is that boy, Jaga?"

"Be easy on him, Claudus." Jaga said, entirely unfazed. Leopara wished she shared in his ease of confidence and composure. "Remember when you were his age, your father wasn't always pleased with you either."

"I never neglected my duties as prince like he does!" Claudus turned towards Tygra. His favorite son, and the kingdom's as well. "Why can't he be more like you, Tygra?"

Still resting his jaw on his hand, elbow propped on the arm of his seat, he answered, "You're asking for the impossible, Father." with a small chuckle. It must have pleased him then, that Lion-O was so late to his own ceremony. Certainly, this would look bad on him.

Claudus growled a little, frustrated still.

"I am sure he does not mean to be so late." Leopara said quietly, trying to ease the tension in the room. "Perhaps he simply lost track of time and will be here soon?"

The King looked at her with scrutiny, but not harshly so. "Hmph. You are Jaga's apprentice, to advise my son?"

Leopara nodded. It felt like there was a lump in her throat. "Yes, King Claudus."

"You know magic?" 

"...yes, your majesty." Claudus nodded, but not in a way that suggested to her their conversation was over.She felt… curiosity from him now, his anger at Lion-O set to the side.

 _"A good king can put aside his emotions to do what is best for his people,_ " Jaga's words echoed in her mind. 

Relieved, she continued, "I was brought to Jaga as a small child to be trained. Right now, I am best at healing and empathetic magics, but I am… proficient with protective ones as well."

Claudus nodded again, thoughtful. "And you are Lion-O's age?" Another nod. "I will have to visit the cleric's hall while you and Jaga are training."

With an apprehensive glance towards Jaga, who nodded, she looked to the King and did the same. "Of course," said Jaga, unbothered, "it would be our pleasure." She smiled wanly, feeling a knot of anxiousness twist inside of her.

"Sit," Claudus gestured to the seat to Jaga's left, the other side of her. 

Leopara sat silently, not wanting to disobey what might have been an order, and waited. And waited. 

The bells rang again, a clear three times.

Even Claudus took to sitting, his anger silently growing steely.

By the time the doors flung open, nearly half another hour had passed. Tygra yawned into his offhand as his brother's footfalls echoed across the stone floor. Lion-O raced to the stairs leading up the dais quickly. The three stood, and she did the same.

A little breathless, opening his arms out wide, the prince exclaimed, "Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry!"

His father did not look impressed. She didn't know how Lion-O didn't shrink away from his overbearing glare… such an imposing cat, the king was. Displeasure radiated from him like an aura cloaking him. Without saying anything to Lion-O, he looked to Jaga and nodded.

"Let us begin this sacred rite of passage."

Jaga nodded his head in acknowledgement, and Leopara watched closely as he stepped forward and raised his staff. "Guardians of the crown, bring forth the Sword of Omens." At his call, the waiting nine clerics entered the throne room. They walked slowly, careful with the blade shrouded under a cloth. As they reached the stairs, they stopped, all except the cleric carrying the blade. Leopara recognised Cheetara. Behind her, she could recognise the silhouettes of Sunda and Sundara.

Cheetara bowed before Claudus, holding up the blade. 

Jaga approached her and pulled the cloth from the sword while speaking, revealing its long, silvery blade and the Eye of Thundera, a powerful red stone radiating magics, set into a curved blue guard. Its energies thrummed, beckoning for Lion-O to grasp it. 

"While you will one day wear the crown, only the eye of Thundera, the source of our power, knows if there is indeed a king inside of you. Take the sword and become one with it." Jaga gestured.

Lion-O, with a determined expression, clasped his hand around the hilt and hoisted the blade.

"You hold in your hands what built the Thundercats' empire," Claudus narrated to Lion-O as the prince climbed down the stairs from the dais, "-but only he who is deemed worthy can wield its awesome power." Lion-O gazed at the blade with awe.

 _Is that right? I thought it was warded by magics…?_ Leopara refrained from raising her hand to cup her chin, but only because the ceremony at hand was so important.

Lion-O swung his blade experimentally, getting accustomed to the weight and balance of the blade. His technique seemed… unbalanced. Crude, if Leopara was honest, although she was not trained in swordsmanship so she would not look much better… but he _was_ trained. 

_Oh… oh no,_ the duties Lion-O neglected… did they include swordplay?

… that was fine, right? There was always room for improvement and maybe after she and he were introduced properly like Jaga wanted, she could urge him to attend lessons and make sure he did.

Leopara took a small, sharp breath, and then exhaled softly. It would be alright.

Claudus's booming voice brought her back to the throne room. "Let me show you what it is capable of in the proper hands." He stalked down the stairs towards Lion-O with Tygra following him. 

What would be the best way to entice Lion-O to actually partake in swordplay? No, the real question was what _kept_ him from attending? She would have to be blind _and_ deaf to not notice his father's disappointment in him and his brother's smugness.

"Uh oh, catch!" Tygra exclaimed, tossing a sword at Lion-O. Lion-O caught it, fumbling with its hilt.

No sooner than he had caught it, Claudus whirled around and bore down on him, swinging the Sword of Omens in a powerful arc with lightning crackling and dancing around it. Lion-O struggled to block, immediately overwhelmed. But that wasn't enough for Claudus. He began to speak. "The book told that it was the Thundercats, our ancestors, who defeated Mumm-Ra. It was the Thundercats who brought law and order to a world of warring animals, and it is now the Thundercats who are strong enough to maintain this fragile peace!" With a final powerful blow, Claudus knocked the sword from Lion-O's hands and sent him crashing into the marble. Claudus turned the blade and stabbed it into the center of the emblazoned Thundercats insignia, lightning still crackling around it.

The expression on Lion-O's face was one of awe, even Leopara could feel it. As the crackling around the blade died down, he climbed to his feet and approached the blade, wrapped his hand around its hilt, and pulled it from the stone. With a serious expression of determination, he began to swing the sword again. His footwork was simply… graceful, this time. She couldn't help smiling as she watched his smooth swings, and as thin lines of lightning began to dance around the blade again.

She felt proud, actually.

"That's it! Concentrate!" Claudus shouted in encouragement.

Lion-O continued, eventually reaching the center of the insignia where he lowered the sword's tip to the center. Leopara wasn't sure what exactly happened next. It was like… the aura of the room shifted. Intuitively, Lion-O lifted the blade parallel to him, so that the stone was level with his eyes. His eyes began to glow and then…

Leopara felt the heaviest, the- the… _evilest,_ most malicious presence she had ever-

She felt sick, immediately. Like eyes were upon them and…

… she staggered a little, swaying. The room went out of focus, spinning around her. She reached out, trying to grab Jaga to steady herself, but he moved out of her reach and she grabbed nothing but empty air and stumbled.

_"Lion-O, why did you stop?"_

Before she could fall to her knees in recoil of that overwhelming presence, she felt strong arms catch her. "Whoa there," Tygra said quietly. "You don't look so good."

"I… I don't feel good…" her vision swam. She saw multiples of Jaga, too far to have heard her, approaching Lion-O.

_"Tell us."_

Tygra hoisted her up and turned her, walking her towards her seat. "Here, sit."

She did, without very much grace, and raised a hand to her face. "Thanks… I mean, thank you."

"Leopara, are you alright?" came Cheetara's voice as she approached. She nodded a little. It was hard to tell what Cheetara was thinking, wearing her shroud.

The feeling of absolute dread, like she was going to vomit under the sheer magnitude of it, was fading. Still, she felt shaky and uneasy. What _was_ that? That couldn't have been the Sword of Omens… could it? 

Cheetara and Tygra exchanged glances and took a step away, speaking in hushed tones.

_"Ha. Meow!"_

A clang. _"The sword is ready, Lion-O, but you are not."_

Claudus's heavy footfalls sounded throughout the throne room as he stalked away, shoulders low in disappointment.

 _"What? I didn't see anything."_ Lion-O said defensively. Confusion roiled in her. But… didn't he? Or did something see him? She raised her other hand to her pounding head, rubbing her temple.

 _"And I did not say anything."_ Jaga said wittily. She glanced towards them, to see Jaga pause as he caught sight of her, sitting with Tygra and Cheetara hovering nearby, speaking with worry while glancing at her. Then, he resumed his pace. 

"Leopara, is everything well?" he asked.

"I… I think so." she shook her head. 

Jaga studied her for a moment. "Come, let us return to the Hall." Weakly, she nodded and stood. Jaga rested his hand on her shoulder, and, together, they walked out of the throne room.

Lion-O continued to stand there at the window, looking dejected, while his brother left and the clerics followed them.

* * *

Leopara pulled the cloak draped over her close, taking comfort from it. 

Jaga was quiet as he began to pour tea for both of them. As he offered her a cup, with the exact amount of cream and sugar she liked. 

"Thank you…" she murmured, sipping from it.

Jaga smiled kindly at her. "You said you felt some sort of presence, one that wasn't in the room?" 

In a quiet voice, she said, "It was vile, it- it felt… _evil."_ She felt calmer now, but she couldn't forget that feeling. Pure malice, pure evil intent. Ancient and old.

"When Lion-O looked through the Eye?"

She nodded. Jaga watched her thoughtfully, so she hesitantly added, "It was like… he looked into the stone, and something… _it_ looked back at him."

"I see." He set a hand on her shoulder. "It frightened the young prince as well. The Eye can often show visions most unpleasant. Do not let it plague your mind."

"Yes, Jaga."

"Good." He affectionately mussed her hair. "If you feel well, the day is still young. I wish for you to spend it how you like."

Leopara raised a brow at him. "I thought you wanted to introduce me and the prince formally?"

Jaga nodded solemnly, stroking his beard. It was always striking to her just how wizened he looked without his cloak. "Yes, but such introductions can wait. Your well-being concerns me."

Warmth filled her. 

"I'll be alright, Jaga." she reassured him. "I would like to return with you to the palace."

"If that is what you truly wish," he began, stroking his beard, "Then I will not stop you."

Leopara chuckled and stood, carefully sliding his cloak off her shoulders and holding it out to him. "Perhaps after tea?" she suggested.

With his own chuckle, he whirled it around himself, draping it on his shoulders once again. "Yes, after tea."


	2. Festivities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kudos!

Cat's Lair was a grandiose monument to the power of the Thundercat's empire, with its roaring blue head greeting the afternoon sun with ferocity. Its image inspired awe in the people, when they would look up and gaze upon its likeness.

Leopara had seen it everyday for ten summers, yet somehow only been cradled within its walls a handful of times. Even so, she understood its basic layout.

After finding and speaking to King Claudus with Jaga, she politely excused herself to look for the prince she was actually supposed to be introducing herself to.

The marble walls of the palace carried the sounds of her footfalls in long, distant echoes as Leopara made her way down the hall, trailing her hand over the stone. Her claws scraped lightly at the stone until she pulled her hand away, pausing as the sight through the window caught her eye.

She made her way over, pap pap pap, as she stepped across the stones, and rested her hands on the window sill to look out. The afternoon sun shone brightly on the kingdom, and from here, in the heights of Cat's Lair, she could see the entire expanse of Thundera stretching out before her in the basin of cliffs surrounding them on three sides. "Whoa…" she murmured softly, seeing the glistening, staggered lakes and pools, white stone homes and paths winding through, to the first of two walls protecting them from invasion; beyond that, she could see the golden fields of wheat, and the farthest wall standing tall and proud.

Leopara sighed softly again as she leaned against the sill, getting lost in a view she hadn't realised was so close to her. It was breathtaking.

"It's a pretty view, isn't it?"

She startled, head whipping to look at the speaker. Leopara blinked. _Huh, would you look at that? Just who I was looking for._ "Prince Lion-O!"

"Sorry," he rubbed the back of his head, tossing his red mane sheepishly. "I didn't mean to startle you. You were at… well, you were here earlier, weren't you?"

With a nod, she said, "Yes. I didn't get to properly introduce myself earlier." She raised a paw to her chest to gesture, "I'm Jaga's apprentice sorceress, Leopara. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh. I forgot he had an apprentice. We met briefly when we were cubs, didn't we…?" he asked, scratching his mane more.

"Yeah… it was just before your father sent the generals to find the book."

"Right!" Lion-O's face lit up, resting his paws on the sill as well. "Tygra and I were training with Grune and Panthro when my father and Jaga approached. Tygra kept asking you a lot of questions until you got mad and doused him in water."

Embarrassed, she rubbed at her cheek. "Not on purpose…" she turned as well to look back out. "But yes, it is a pretty view."

Lion-O chuckled in amusement. He opened his mouth to say something more, mouth twisted in a lopsided grin, but before he could give voice to his words, a low, deep horn interrupted them. They paused, their eyes meeting and blinking as surprise and confusion turned to worry.

Today was just stubbornly determined to prove her feeling correct against all odds, wasn't it? There was so much change in the air, she could sneeze from it like the pollen of a firwood tree. _Egch._ She hated fuiwoods.

Another sound of the war horn resonated across the fields and vast distance of the kingdom.

It was extraordinary that it could be heard across such an expanse.

"What is going on…?" Lion-O wondered aloud. He stepped away from the window, readying to make his way down the hall, but he paused and looked at her. "Come on, let's go find my father."

Leopara nodded.

With a nod of his own, he turned and ran down the hall. Leopara hurried to keep up as he turned the corner, sliding towards the wall and catching herself on her hands before jumping after him. She bumped into his back as he slowed down, reaching back to steady her briefly before making his way onto a balcony, where the King was standing with a telescope, Tygra to his left and Jaga to his right.

"It can't be!" Claudus exclaimed, laughing and lowering his telescope. "It can't be! At long last!"

Confused, Leopara squinted at the horizon. She saw… a dark blob slowly moving towards the walls. A small glint of light reflecting off of something. "What is that?"

"Old friends." Claudus answered, turning. "Come! We'll go greet them."

Lion-O stepped forward. "Greet who?"

"Grune and Panthro!" Claudus clapped his son on his shoulder in his hurry to leave the balcony.

Leopara exchanged a glance with Jaga as the princes ran after their father, their footfalls, _pap pap pap pap pap!,_ fading away in the distance.

* * *

Excitement thrummed throughout the kingdom in the wake of General Grune's return.

A grand celebration was arranged hastily by the King to celebrate the return of his friend, and funeral, naught but a time of mourning and respect without the body of Panthro, arranged in the morning.

The servants worked fast all afternoon to complete the preparations by evening.

In the center of the plaza, rested Grune's hideous war trophy, twisted black stone with sickly yellow gems protruding. It reeked of malice and disgust. Leopara held nothing but unease and disdain for it, even as beautiful as the strings of light hung from it, spanning outwards to poles erected in a circle, alight with small candle lanterns.

Half of the plaza was filled with wooden tables adorned by a grand feast of a buffet, the other half 'empty' space for reveling cats to dance the night away.

Leopara lurked on the steps to the clerics hall beside Jaga as Claudus addressed his attending subjects.

King Claudus and his sons, one on either side of him, stood atop the stairs leading to Cat's Lair. His booming voice carried over the plaza with ease, heard by all who listened.

 _"It was many seasons ago when I sent out Generals Grune and Panthro to find the fabled Book of Omens. While it remains lost, Grune has returned to us with tales of adventure, great treasure, and new lands to conquer. Today,"_ Grune stepped forward for his dramatic introduction, _"-we show him our appreciation!"_ As cheers and applause erupted within the gathered cats, Grune raised his right fist and placed it over his heart.

"I don't like this, Jaga… there's something… _wrong_ about Grune."

Jaga looked at her calmly. "It is alright, child… I sense it as well. He has always been...ambitious." He stroked his beard as he thought. "It is troubling that our friend Panthro has not returned with him." Jaga shook his head, almost as though he had not meant to muse aloud. "Ah, but tonight is a celebration." He set his hand on her shoulder. "You have even dressed up nicely~ go, enjoy yourself, Leopara. It is such a rare occasion that you get to mingle in these parties."

She sighed softly, shoulders slumping. Leopara nodded. "I'll try, Jaga."

"Good." He gave her a kind smile.

Pushing her worries down, she took a deep breath and let it go gently, before stepping down the stairs. Already, dancing and feasting had begun. She looked around, uncertain how she fit into this moment: she wasn't excited about Grune's return- she had never liked him and doubted she ever would- she didn't know how to dance, and the worries she had pushed down settled in the pit of her stomach, filling her with a heavy, twisting, dreadful feeling.

What was she even supposed to do?

"Hey, it's you again!"

Leopara started, swallowing around a dry throat. Lion-O grinned at her. "You're not following me, are you?" he asked. She thought he sounded teasing. Wordless, she shook her head and he chuckled. "I, uh, didn't know you or Jaga would be attending?"

"Is that so strange?"

He shook his head. "No, no. Of course not." The prince looked around, seeming almost as lost as she. "Do you… want to dance?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head again.

"Oh, um…" Embarrassment overwhelmed Leopara. She shifted from foot to foot as she admitted, "I… I don't know how to dance…"

"Oh… sorry."

"You- you don't need to apologise." she reassured him.

An awkward quiet fell over them as they stood there, both embarrassed and unsure what to say or do, lingering about the fringes of the crowd. "So, do-" an eruption of childish laughter interrupted Lion-O. Their heads swiveled to watch as two scraggly toms, probably only a few years younger than Lion-O and herself.

They ran towards the stockades, rotten fruit in hand.

"I'm sorry." Lion-O apologised abruptly. He started to hurry away, but paused to look over his shoulder. "I'll be right back! Promise!"

"Um, okay?" she called back.

He disappeared through the crowd.

Leopara blinked a couple times, puzzled. _Am I supposed to wait?_ She shook her head and followed after Lion-O, slipping through the minglers while straining to see over their heads, looking for that dash of red amongst a sea of brown and black and sandy blonde.

"Cut it out!" Lion-O shouted.

The two scraggly toms scampered off, laughing. Lion-O looked annoyed, and Leopara could see why: a rotten tomato, slipping down the face of one of the two lizards trapped in the stocks, on display.

One of the lizards Grune had enslaved to drag that hideous stone to Thundera as a war prize.

She followed Lion-O as he approached. Before he could speak, the lizard to their right, frill-less and murky in color, pleaded, "Please, your majesty, show mercy!"

_He can recognise Thunderan royalty on sight alone?_

"Why should I?" Lion-O demanded. _Hm…. I suppose they have very distinctive hair…_ she thought, recalling following his red mane. "If the roles were reversed, you would have lopped my head off by now." He gestured, slashing his arm through the air.

"We were only scavenging for food when we were captured as slaves!"

"Forget it!" the other lizard, green and with frills around his jawline, hisses. "Looking for mercy from cats is like squeezing water from a rock."

"Hold your tongue, fool! They'll kill us!"

Lion-O looked down, a solemn expression on his face. Leopara reached a hand up, setting it on his arm. "No, I want to hear this. What do you mean?"

In a raspy voice, the lizard explains, "We only attack to survive. You control the best lands and resources, leaving the rest of the animals to fight over scraps. If we steal your crops, it is only to feed our children."

A feeling of guilt settled over Leopara like a blanket. Ashamed, she looked down, then glanced at Lion-O.

"Lion-O, you-" she began.

"-aren't taking this criminal seriously, are you?" Tygra interrupted abruptly, clasping Lion-O on the shoulder. Leopara startled.

The lizard hissed. "Criminal? The lizards' only crime is being weaker than the cats! And it's the same for all animals!"

With his hand still on his brother's shoulder, Tygra dismissed the lizard's presence. "Come on, it's almost time for the games." And with that, he walked away, completely unaffected by the lizard's words. Lion-O looked back at the lizards, glancing at Leopara, and then turned without a word to follow his brother.

Leopara lingered, blinking after him.

Slowly, she looked back to the lizards. They hung their heads, humiliated and undoubtedly exhausted, but forced to stand where anyone could gawk at them. _This isn't right._

_...but can I even do anything about it?_

"Will you tell me more?" she asked at long last. Lion-O had wanted to know, and she was to be his advisor… perhaps it would behoove her to educate herself on this topic? "About your lives and people? Thunderans only know you as barbarians from the swamps… why do you live in the swamps, anyways? Is it because…" she looks around and the white marble walls, the candlelit lanterns, tables of food. Cats dancing merrily in their finest. _Is it because of us?_

The lizard hissed again as he began to speak, and she wondered, _when did he last have a drink of water?_

"We live near the swamps, because the Cats do not want them… and we need the waters to raise our children."

"How do you mean?"

He took a raspy breath. "Our children hatch from eggs… every year, we go on a great hunt while our women go into the swamps to retrieve our children." A hiss. "But even our swamps, you've destroyed."

"The aqueducts…" she murmurs. "I had no idea they harmed your nursery grounds. I never even thought of how your children were born…"

He hissed, but didn't say anything.

"I… thank you. I should go now."

She curtsied to them before turning. As her eyes laid upon the nearby table, she paused. Gentle hisses behind her.

Leopara looked around. The plaza was growing desolate as everyone made their way to the coliseum for the provings. Gears in her mind turned, clicking satisfyingly into place.

She strode forward and grabbed two haunches of meat and a large cup, and walked back, no doubt in her mind. "You haven't eaten in while, have you?"

The two looked back up at her, eyes growing wide with surprise. "Here." She held the leg out to him. His arms were longer and thinner than a cat's would have been, and so, he was able to grasp it, and with his long neck, shifted to take a bite. Leopara smiled and gave the other lizard the other leg. He eyed it skeptically.

"Why?" he rasped.

"Why what?" She held up the cup, filled with water. "Drink."

He looked down at it, up at her, arm outstretched, and down at the goblet. Finally, he leaned in to drink.

She smiled a little.

* * *

"You are late," Jaga said as she approached, somewhat amused. Tardiness was not a habit of hers.

"I had something important to do." Leopara said simply, looking up at the winding branches of the… well, "branches" and "tree" were generous terms for the mess and tangle of bark-covered limbs weaving towards the sky, illuminated by the soft blue glow of the waters below and the setting sun above. "Is that… Prince Lion-O and Tygra?"

He nodded sagely. "Yes."

A heaviness settled on her heart. _Don't let him rile you up, Lion-O…_

There was nothing to do but wait and watch.

The match began at the sound of a fanfare trumpet. A double trill, pause, double trill. The brothers took off racing up the elegant curve of the 'vine' they were perched upon. Tygra slowed, letting Lion-O pull ahead, only to leap from behind him. Lion-O kicked out at him, but Tygra caught his foot and landed a powerful punch, sending Lion-O hurtling back down. Applause erupted. The standards hung around the walls of the coliseum waved gently in the wind.

Leopara watched as Lion-O quickly climbed and leapt, gaining on Tygra. They exchanged a flurry of blows, racing upwards, ever upwards towards the golden bell. Whoever rung that, they would win...

Lion-O got a good, swift strike in, but it wasn't good enough. Tygra whirled around with a kick, sending Lion-O tumbling back down while Tygra ran onto the branch the bell was tied to, standing atop its crest. He said something to Lion-O, a boast, a taunt- his words lost to the wind. In anger, Lion-O flung himself towards Tygra.

Leopara's heart plummeted, just as Lion-O did, cast down into the water by a swift strike from his brother. The crowd gasped in shock, while she watched sadly.

Never had a splash of water been so heartbreaking.

As Lion-O resurfaced, Tygra leapt onto the bell, holding onto its long grip as he swung. The bell chimed mockingly, and the crowd went wild with cheers and applause.

It was painful to watch Lion-O climb out of the water, crestfallen and humiliated.

She hurried to follow, but Jaga rested his hand on her shoulder to stop her. Aghast, she looked back at him. "Jaga-!"

He shook his head sagely. "There will be time later, child."

"But…" she looked back at Lion-O. His head was hung as he retreated quickly down the hall. He looked so sullen. What would she accomplish, chasing after him now? Leopara's shoulders sagged.

* * *

Leopara did not wait very long to seek out Lion-O. She paced anxiously and impatiently for what felt like hours, but was merely minutes, inside the Clergy library- quiet and dim at this time of night, with only the moons to shed light amongst the shelves and books and tables- before she made her way back out to the plaza.

Once more, after the exciting match between the brothers, Thunderans reveled freely under the spanning strings of light, dancing and eating and merry-ing in general.

She had pushed her way through the crowd to climb the stairs to the Cat's Lair.

Lion-O was on a balcony when she found him, overlooking the plaza with his companion Snarf. She paused in the hall, unnoticed. He held something in his hands, although she couldn't see what exactly, as his back was to her.

"It's official. They think I'm a failure. And they always will unless I can prove I'm not following a childish dream."

 _"Snya."_ Snarf agreed sadly.

"But how can I do that when even Grune said there was no tech out there?" Lion-O lamented. He sighed in frustration as her mind whirled.

What was she going to say? What had she even _intended_ to say?

"I was told once that some see only what they wish to see." she spoke up, startling Lion-O. He whipped around to look at her, hiding whatever it was that he was holding behind his back. "And that sometimes, they do not see things that are because they don't recognise them. Who knows how many true wonders General Grune may have missed?"

"What do you mean?"

Leopara frowned a little as she walked to the balcony and rested her elbows on its edge. "Your brother looks at the lizards and sees nothing more than criminals. Your father looked to the swamps and saw a source of pure and clean water, if only we would cultivate them into aqueducts- but to others, to lizards, the swamps are where they lay their eggs, where their children hatch… where they come from. And Grune…" She looks at the stone in the center of the plaza. _What does he see?_ "A spoil of war, adventures, lands for us to conquer… he sees power."

The more she speaks, the more Lion-O's brow furrows.

"But that's not what you see, is it?" she asks him.

"No, I…" he sighs and drops his guard, resting his arms on the stone railing as well. In his left hand, he holds a golden disk of some sort. _What is that?_ "How did you know about the swamps…?"

"I spoke with the lizards. You said you wanted to hear what they had to say, so… after you left I stayed and spoke with them a little longer."

Lion-O blinked at her with surprise. "Really? You did that?"

"Yeah." Leopara straightened, resting her hands against the edge instead. "You are going to be my king someday, and it'll be my _duty_ to help you. But… I think there's something special about you. You see things differently than them."

The distant, quieted sounds of laughter and merriment were the only thing she hears for a moment. She waited for a response.

More quiet.

She turned to look at him.

His expression was one of shock and almost disbelief. As they made eye contact, he shook his head, breaking his daze. _Um… alright? Was that… bad?_

"Wow… you really mean that." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

Leopara nodded regardless and looked back out over the balcony. "You know… Jaga told me once the greatest of our kings will possess the ability of sight beyond sight." She steps back from the balcony and pivots towards him, turning in a fluid motion towards the balcony. "Who knows… maybe that's you?"

"You mean… visions?" he asked, looking troubled.

She paused. She knew exactly what he was referring to, that presence… "It's not just visions…" she begins. "Jaga says it is the ability to lead with clarity. To… see things as they really are and act upon that."

Lion-O looked down at the disk contemplatively.

"What is that, anyway?" she asked, eager to change the topic.

"Oh, um… it's nothing."

"... you are a _terrible_ liar. It's tech, isn't it?"

Lion-O grimaced, caught red-handed. "It is…"

With a smile, she asked, "Can I see it?" She held out her paw and, a bit hesitant, he gave it to her. She smoothed her paw over the edge. "Hm… it's very cool and smooth, except for these… they're purposeful though, aren't they? They remind me of fullers."

Lion-O's eyes lit up. "Yeah, they are. But I can't figure out what this is supposed to do."

"Hm… well, what if we opened it up? Maybe we could find some clue."

He mulled it over. "You think so?"

"Of course. It might look completely foreign, but we might see elements of our own technology that we could use to infer its purpose?" Leopara suggested, handing it back to him. "Not that I even really know too much about that."

Lion-O nodded, fiddling with it. "Yeah… Leopara?"

"Hm?"

"I… saw something." he admits. She furrowed her brows and looked behind her, a bit disconcerted. "No, not like that. In the Eye."

She paused, stiffening.

_Leopara felt the heaviest, the- the… evilest, most malicious presence she had ever- She felt sick, immediately. Like eyes were upon them and…she staggered a little, swaying. The room went out of focus, spinning around her. She reached out, trying to grab Jaga to steady herself, but she grabbed nothing but empty air._

"... I know." she said quietly. "That evil… _presence."_

"You… knew?"

Leopara nodded. "I… yes." she shifted. "I can sense… things. It was… _overwhelming."_ Just thinking about it made her head spin. "That's why Jaga and I left so quickly. He doesn't want us to worry about… it. Sometimes the things we see or feel can be frightening, but we don't have to be scared of it." She looked out over the balcony. "You know… the celebration is still going. We should enjoy ourselves… you _did_ promise to come back"

Lion-O looked out, rubbing the back of his head. With a nod, agreed, "Yeah." He looked down at the disk and held it up a little to gesture. "We can look at this tomorrow."

"Yeah." Leopara nodded in agreement.

* * *

It was a short while before they circled back around to the lizards in the stockades, after milling around food tables and making up outrageous stories about random cats.

When they did return, it was both with Tygra and because they saw a crowd gathering. Leopara could feel malcontent roiling from them, but even Claudus's anger earlier was more overwhelming. Their malice was little more than a wide and shallow creek to her, for all their shouting and jeering, waving torches and pitchforks.

"We can't let this happen."

Lion-O ran forward, chased down by his brother. Tygra caught him on the shoulder and demanded, "Why? They're our greatest enemy, Lion-O."

"Maybe they don't have to be." Lion-O shrugged off his hand and continued, pushing through the crowd to come to stand before the lizards, and Leopara hurried to follow in his wake, slipping through the crowd to stand behind him. She could hear the lizards hiss and breathe shakily from fear. Throwing his arms open wide, he addressed the crowd, "These lizards have done us no harm. They don't deserve this!"

A bushy, brown-furred tom with a torch stepped forward. "You're right, Prince Lion-O." The tom swept his gaze over the others. "These barbarians deserve death!"

In a battle for the heart of the crowd, Lion-O had already lost. But he didn't back down, even as shocked as he was to see his people cheer and raise their pitchforks, riled to violence. Even the lizards watched in apprehension, but Leopara began to reach into that wellspring inside of her, drawing her magics to the surface.

"I'm not gonna let anyone lay a paw on them!"

The ruffian swung at Lion-O sloppily, "Move, lizard lover!" but even so, Lion-O was off balance as he moved. "Or you will end up in those stocks yourself!" The crowd cheered.

Leopara reached out with her hand, touching his forehead with her claw.

Claudus's emotions were so powerful because he had a strong mind and will. But these cats… they were far beneath. The only reason she could even _feel_ them was because they were so concentrated.

They were weak-willed and feeble minded.

The ruffian fell to the ground unconscious and the crowd gasped in shock. Tygra stepped beside her, looking down at the unconscious cat, then up at the crowd.

"You better be sure you want to do this, because _we've_ got his back." he warned them.

They murmured in uncertainty before another shouted, "Get them!"

 _Ah… I hoped they wouldn't do that._ she thought, quickly thinking through her options as she dodged backwards to avoid a torch. They were limited, as she didn't have any focus to channel more useful magics through.

A blur of yellow slammed into the tom. Cheetara turned to look at her with a little smirk and tossed Leopara's scepter to her. "Never leave home without it!"

"Thanks!" Leopara twirled it while Cheetara sped away, a streak of yellow chasing her.

 _"Try and catch me!"_ Cheetara taunted.

"Go to sleep." Leopara commanded, gesturing her scepter in a smooth, curving gesture in front of her. Pale blue, misty energies swirled around the five charging her. They slowed, and swayed. They yawned and murmured, before collapsing to the ground. She turned to glance at the others.

Cheetara was hurtling through the crowd with ease, doing what she was trained for. Tygra was skillfully using his whip and camouflage to control his battle.

Lion-O was in a free-for-all brawl.

_"Lion-O!"_

King Claudus's voice boomed over the din of the crowd. Everyone came to a stop, Lion-O with a tom's shirt twisted in his fist, arm reared back to punch him. He let go of the cat as the crowd parted like rivulets of water spilling over a stone face.

King Claudus strode forward, four soldiers and General Grune at his side.

"What is going on here? Protecting lizards?" Claudus demanded.

Lion-O didn't hesitate. He gestured to the lizards. "No, I'm protecting _us_ from turning into the very cold blooded creatures we fear. These lizards did nothing and should be released!"

Claudus looked incredulous. "Release them? Don't be foolish. As Lord of the Thundercats, it is my duty to keep our people safe and it will one day be yours."

Leopara glanced to Lion-O. She felt proud of the determined expression on his face, so different from his uncertain and crestfallen posture earlier.

"You wanted me to start acting like a king. Well, this is it. And I don't think the only way to rule is with a sword. Maybe we'd have less trouble with the lizards if we weren't always repressing them!" he argued.

A long silence followed. It seemed like even the air held its breath as they waited. The lizards watched in fearful hope.

Finally, Claudus closed his eyes and nodded, silent acceptance and allowance.

The soldiers strode forward, past Leopara, past Lion-O, toward the stocks. Their pauldrons _clinked_ faintly as they did so. They used their spears to pop open the tops of the stocks, and then gave the lizards a hearty shove. "Get out of here!"

"My lord?" Grune prodded Claudus, who remained stoically quiet as his soldiers released the lizards.

In an automatic voice, he intoned, "Consider this an act of good will between the species." He strode forward to stop in front of Lion-O. Looking down onto his son, he added, "Perhaps now you might show some good will of your own and take your responsibilities as prince more seriously."

Lion-O nodded solemnly.

Leopara smiled a little, pleased at the sight.

Lion-O was going to prove _everyone_ wrong, and he seemed set on it. On being his own King, and not his father.

Claudus turned wordlessly and walked away, followed by Grune and the soldiers. Wisely, the crowd dispersed behind them quickly, scattering in all directions. Many of them, she saw shamefully head to the gates of the plaza, trickling out despite the celebrations continuing.

None of them wanted the king to change his mind and decide to have them all arrested- or worse- for attacking his sons.

There was still something she didn't like about Grune… this _aura_ like a heavy and dark cloud broiling and stewing around him. It made her fur stand on end the same as when she channeled lightning, the sparks and tendrils of electricity dancing in the air…

Yes, that was the feeling, but so much subtler. He just felt… _wrong,_ somehow.

She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Was it just personal distaste?

Leopara shook her head softly and settled her scepter on her hips before turning to face the brothers. Cheetara had disappeared like the wind that carried her to them.

Lion-O seemed quite puzzled as he looked around with furrowed brows.

"If you're looking for Cheetara, she's gone now."

Lion-O whipped his head towards her. "You know her? That's twice in one day I've seen her. I swear she's following me." he shook his head.

"Into trouble, it seems. She's a cleric. Jaga's other student."

"She's a cleric?" he repeated, sounding rather disappointed. _Why?_ He looked back over the stockades, his eyes sweeping over the area. It was dark and blue and gray now that there were no lights, even the lanterns did not illuminate very much. A miserable little puddle reflected a couple distant yellow-orange orbs.

Tygra slapped his hand on Lion-O's shoulder, squeezing, before he too walked away.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "From your brawl?"

Lion-O blinked at her, and then shifted, looking tough. "Yeah, just got a couple bruises. Nothing that won't heal."

Leopara stepped in, setting her hand on his arm and closing her eyes. Concentrating her awareness, she could feel the blossoms of pain under his fur, see them through her eyelids as little, faint red dots. She sighed softly as she let her magics trickle over, soothing the pain and healing them. The pulsing red spots in her vision melded away, fading into black.

"What did you…?" Lion-O asked, as she stepped back and opened her eyes. "Was that… healing magic?" he wondered.

"Yes."

"I thought it was extremely difficult."

"For some. Certain personalities and traits suit certain magics more than others. Someone like Tygra would never be able to heal but you would, for example."

Lion-O continued marveling for a moment. "You really think I could?"

"If you were a practitioner of magic, yes." Leopara nodded. "Come on, let's go somewhere else."

"Maybe we could dance?"

"Haha. No."

Lion-O laughed.


	3. The Destruction

Sleep did not find Leopara well. She tossed and turned all night, haunted by nightmarish red eyes every time she began to drift. 

As the pale light of dawn filtered through the curtains, she sighed softly and sat up.

Leopara got dressed in her pale blue dress, changing out of her night gown, and sat in the chair at her vanity. She pulled her brush through her brown waves. Even beginning at the bottom and working her way up, the brush snagged multiple times on knots from her sleepless tossing and turning.

She wanted nothing more than to crawl into the library and hide from today. It was… not so good, no.

After tying her hair back in a loose bun that hung low at the base of her head, loose strands freely dangling about, she stood and finished dressing for the day, pulling on her long gloves, tightening the band around her bicep on each, then sliding into her tall stockings, which stopped just short of the angled skirt of her dress at her mid-thighs.

It was a hot summer day, so she didn't mind most of her right upper thigh being exposed. 

Lastly, she grabbed her scepter, an elaborate rod of wood no longer than her forearm, tapered at one end to form a point, the top fitting a crystal focus amidst elegantly carved branches and leaves. The crystal was clear now, unclouded, but by simply concentrating, it would magnify her magic and intent, and the crystal would swirl with color.

"Subtraxerim utilium." she commanded, closing her eyes to focus, to imagine the scepter shrinking and shifting to the size of a hair pin. She could feel it grow small in her hands. With another sigh, she opened her eyes.

It looked like a beautiful hair pin. She reached up, behind her head, and carefully stabbed it into her bun. Today was _not_ the day for her to leave it behind, naïvely believing it would be unnecessary.

No, today had the cold feeling of an entity determined to make her life difficult. Perhaps it was fate, turned against her. 

Perhaps it was essential dread from the day before, plaguing her.

Or perhaps, Cheetara was correct and she should never leave without her scepter. She spared a moment to wonder, _how did she even know, anyways?_

She swept her gaze over herself one last time in the mirror, from the symmetrical trio of spots dotting her cheeks, to the rosettes on her ears, to meeting her own eyes. A golden gaze returned her stare. She reached up a hand to rub at her rosette spotted ear, gaze flicking down to the golden choker that covered her dress's halterneck.

It looked elegant, what with the golden trim. It looked refined.

Leopara felt neither refined or elegant right now.

She felt sleep deprived.

Her shoulders felt heavy, heavier than any feeling of dread could. She yawned, stretching and turning away from the mirror.

Perhaps there would be tea in the mess hall?

She really hoped so.

With a heavy sigh, she made her way out of her room and down the hall, down the stairs, to the right and around the indoors obstacle course for the clerics. A few of the younglings were training on it, dodging the whirling arms of the spiked arms of the poles, the swinging pendulums. To move swiftly, but not to rush. 

Leopara made her way into the mess hall at barely more than a shamble. 

Multiple long, low lying wooden tables spanned the expanse of the hall, with sitting pillows scattered around them in a variety of colors. Red, blue, green, and a couple in dark shades of purple. They were rather simple, devoid of any fancy needlework that wasn't stitched by the clerics themselves. Even then, such pillows were more often personal belongings and weren't kept in the mess hall, where everyone ate and messes were made often enough. She had seen a very undignified food fight once… 

There were a few clerics in the hall, gathered in clusters of three or four, with a couple lonesome pairs and… by herself, Cheetara. 

Leopara made her way over, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn. 

"Good morning~" Cheetara's eyes glimmered with mischief and her lips curved in a small, playful smirk. It was a little unfair how refreshed and rested she looked. 

And Leopara normally thrived in the morning too.

"Good morning…" She sat down beside Cheetara, legs folded neatly as she sank into a plush pillow. Leopara continued sinking, resting her arms and cheek on the table. "I didn't sleep at all last night. Is there any tea?"

Cheetara nodded sagely and handed Leopara her cup. "Here, have mine."

Leopara can feel her entire body perk up at the thought. Reaching for the cup, she paused and glanced at Cheetara. "Are you sure?"

She nodded again and set the wooden cup into her opened hands.

"You are… as resplendent as the golden sun after rainfall."

Cheetara chuckled. "You should drink, Leopara." Leopara did not need more invitation to drink the tea, and gratefully sipped at it. She sighed happily. "I didn't see you in the library last night."

Leopara shook her head. "I wasn't in the library. I kept having these… nightmares last night. I wish I _had_ gone to the library…"

Cheetara's expression was sympathetic.

"But anyways… you were following Lion-O yesterday?"

She nodded. "Jaga asked me to keep him out of trouble."

"Did you?"

"Mm… no. He kept finding it all on his own. You and he seemed to be getting along~"

Leopara sighed and rolled her eyes. "It isn't like that, despite what you may be suggesting… he's…"

"Interesting."

"I was going to say 'different,' but he is interesting too. He showed me a piece of tech he is trying to figure out. Some sort of disk?" Cheetara nodded in understanding. "Cheetara?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think technology from our fairy tales ever really existed?"

Cheetara pondered the question for a moment. "In some way, I believe it did, but tales and stories can be misleading."

"You don't think it does anymore?"

"I don't believe the tech Lion-O bought in the slums yesterday is real." 

_He bought it yesterday?_

Leopara resisted the impulse to rub the back of her head. "I can't imagine what that disk does." she confessed. "If it really is real, I wonder what its purpose is?"

Cheetara shrugged, indifferent to the quandary. 

They fell quiet for a little while, Leopara savoring her tea while Cheetara ate lightly. Finally, Leopara asked, "What are you going to do today? Are you 'keeping' Lion-O out of more trouble?"

She chuckled again and shook her head. "No, Jaga wishes for me to focus on studying and training today."

"Why? Is something wrong?"

Cheetara's brows knit ever so slightly. "No." A pause, then an honest, "Leopara, has Jaga been acting strangely to you?"

Leopara shook her head. "No. Well, actually…" she thought back to her conversation the previous morning. 

_"Hm…" he stroked his long white beard. "I am afraid, my apprentice, there is very little either you or I can do, save for watch. Perhaps an opportunity will present itself to affect this change?"_

"Yesterday, I felt like he was hiding something from me when we spoke in the turret. After I told him how I felt a… a change in the air, and that it wasn't a good one. He kept telling me not to worry and asked me to enjoy myself at the party. That was a bit odd. I really felt like he knew something more about these feelings I've been having, but he doesn't want to tell me. He likes for us to reach our own conclusions, so I just thought… maybe it was Grune? He's always unsettled me."

Cheetara nodded as Leopara rambled on. "I thought so too."

"You did?" Leopara asks, confused. Had Jaga told her of her portend of doom?

"Yes. Jaga is having me study texts about the Book of Omens today."

Alarm jolted through Leopara. She sat upright in a bolt. "But… that would mean…" _He's grooming you to become the next Head Cleric!_

Cheetara nodded solemnly.

"Cheetara… do you think…" Leopara's throat constricted and her heavy heart plummeted to her gut. Quietly, she finished, "Do you think Jaga's going to die?"

Cheetara looked down, rubbing a circle on the wood. She reasoned, "Jaga is very old, older than any living cat."

The thought of no Jaga stung, but… it was what she had been groomed for, wasn't it? The day Jaga would no longer be there to guide the next Lord of the Thundercats, she would take his place. It was daunting. The idea of having to one day live up to Jaga's legacy, without him, had always terrified her.

Leopara startled from her worries as Cheetara rested her hand on her shoulder. "Jaga doesn't wish for us to worry," she said softly, "so we should try to enjoy our time with him instead." Cheetara cocked her head. "Perhaps there is something else at work we don't yet see."

Wordless, Leopara nodded. 

Cheetara stood. "I'll see you around, Leopara."

"See you around, Cheetara."

With a small parting smile, she walked away, leaving Leopara to finish nursing tea that had gone cold and eat a light breakfast that tasted of nothing at all.

* * *

Pacing in the library was frowned upon, so Leopara paced deep in worried thought in the turret. The sun cast deep shadows over most of the valley still, only ambiently lighting anything.

In a way, she was glad it hadn't risen more and not because she loved mornings.

She didn't feel ready to face the day. 

_Jaga…_ she stopped with a sigh near the window. A gentle breeze blew through, rustling her fur. Leopara turned her head to look out the window and approached, resting her hands on the window's sill. She could see cats preparing for their days, bustling around their neighborhoods. A she-cat with a couple of cubs running about as she washed the linens. A baker discarding his dirty flour. A gentle stack of smoke began to rise from the blacksmith's workshop as he pumped the forge and filled it with coal.

It was a nice, normal morning. Thousands of cats were getting up and preparing for their day ahead.

Out there was the only blood relative she had left, if she was still alive after all this time. Someone she barely remembered glimpses of, but whom she was reminded of by the scent of rain in the early morning. An older sister who had never visited her after Jaga sought her out as his apprentice and ward.

Leoparis.

When she was young, she had missed her terribly. But she had moved on and slowly stopped thinking about her except for rare moments. Sometimes, it saddened her that she hadn't made the effort to visit but… their parents had died, and she had struggled terribly to try and keep them safe. There were dozens of little reasons she could think of that her sister hadn't come to see her, and Leopara hadn't made the effort either.

Was that a mistake? Should she have taken the time away from her studies to look for her? To reach out?

… who was she left with, when Jaga died?

He was a father to her, the man who raised her, who taught her and provided for her. He listened to her when she needed someone to confide in and he understood her better than even she did sometimes. And… he was so, so patient.

Leopara sighed heavily, hanging her head.

"I guess… I should go meet Lion-O now…" she said aloud to herself. Her voice did not seem very loud in the empty, silent room.

The quiet was deafening.

Her eyes burned and her throat constricted. Her claws scraped against the stone of the windowsill as she clenched her fists. Her shoulders shook a little.

She couldn't help but gasp for air as tears rolled down her face.

And she collapsed, burying her face in her arms, still on the windowsill, as the cold from the stone floor seeped through her leggings against her knees.

She cried, alone and unheard.

* * *

The halls of Cat's Lair carried the sound of her footsteps along the corridors, _pap, pap, pap, pap…_ The marble walls carried the sound of her breath too as she sighed softly.

By now the sun had risen enough that it crested the walls of the valley, spilling its light over the city and through the windows. The bell rang eight times, its toll gentle and melodic from within the lair. A flock of birds flew past the hall, the flapping of their wings reverberating inside. 

Leopara raised a hand and ragged her fingertips along the wall, listening to the smooth bushing sound she could only describe as sounding like a dulled hiss.

And then, the distant, deep sound of the war horn. It sounded once.

She paused and turned her head to look out the window at the watchtower, so far away but so loud. It must have been deafening. _What could it be this time?_ she wondered, approaching the sill.

It sounded a second time, urgency increasing.

Then, as she watched, a third time.

Leopara sighed heavily, the sound lost to wind as it howled near.

An attack.

* * *

Day passed quickly and urgently as the Army of Thundera mobilised. Nightfall fell quickly, as the hours of sunlight burned away with a sense of fervor.

She could feel steely anger from the king as they gazed at the distant, dark plumes of smoke billowing from the farthest wall. Sign of the lizards' attack. She could feel Lion-O's hurt and disappointment, Tygra's exasperation. Grune seemed… pleased.

Leopara felt numb from the dread that had plagued her.

There was no dread now, just the knowledge she had _known_ something like this was imminent. She had been so desperate to know and find closure, she had assigned the feeling to Grune's return, to Jaga's age… instead of waiting patiently. If she had to ask, _"is this the cause of my feeling?"_ surely it wasn't, in the end. She would _know._

"This attack comes not a day after I pardoned two of those filthy beasts!" Claudus growled deeply and, clenching his left fist, faced his son to his right. "Now do you see the results of leniency?"

"I was only trying to act like a prince." Lion-O defended himself weakly.

"You undermined our power and made the cats look weak." Claudus whirled around and began to stride inside, past she and Jaga on one side, Grune on the other. He paused a moment to say to Lion-O, "It's no wonder everyone thinks your brother should be king."

Claudus continued to walk away as Lion-O stared after him, his eyes wavering. There was a sadness to Claudus, echoed in his son.

"Grune, Tygra, come with me. We need to ready our defenses. Jaga," he continued walkingshile speaking, turning left, "-ready your clerics."

Lion-O hurried to enter the hall. "And me?"

Claudus stopped to look at him, his face twisted with disappointment. "You will remain here."

Leopara watched quietly. Claudus paused again. "Leopara… you will come with me."

"Yes, your majesty." she intoned, joining him with one last look at Jaga who gave her a nod. Offensive spells were no specialty of hers, but, as she had told Claudus, she could heal and she could cast defensive spells, even charms like _sleep._ Leopara could feel Lion-O's gaze follow them as they continued down the hall stern and serious.

_"He's lost all faith in me, Jaga."_

* * *

There were screams of panic as they rode to the wall. Soldiers directed and funneled the terrified citizenry to the shelters, while even more armed themselves and fell in-step behind their king. She could see soldiers lining the battlements, releasing volleys of arrows in retaliation to the burning boulders the lizards had unleashed on the wall.

It was surreal.

She never thought _she_ would be on a battlefield until she was a proper adult, more wise and sagely and powerful, with more control over her gifts.

Her head swam from the fear that filled the air, but her mount carried her true after the king and prince. She couldn't even feel their emotions… but somehow, she could feel Grune's vindictive glee. 

Did he truly enjoy war and battle so?

A thought nagged at her, but she couldn't think it.

The wooden gates stood dark, with swooping silver running through, and closed as the four reached the wall. A bronze brazier was lit on either side of the gates and the soldiers stood arranged in two immaculate columns, parted to clear a path for them. Leopara lingered near Grune uneasily as they turned to face the soldiers.

Claudus addressed them.

"Thundera once again turns to you, noble warriors, to defend her. Tonight, as we go into battle, I only ask that you fight like cats. For our ancestors, for the pride!" he gestured to the gates as battlecries erupted. The soldiers raised their spears and charged.

Claudus turned his mount and ushered it forward, rushing through the gate as it still opened. The only thing for her to do was follow quickly.

The earth shook as more stones aflame crashed into the walls and the ground below. "Fire!" Claudus commanded. A volley of arrows darkened the night skies, blotting out the moons and driving the lizards back.

The lizards regrouped and began to advance again. "For the pride!" Claudus outstretched his arm, and the archers fired again. Again, the lizards scattered, many of them struck and felled by arrows. "That's it! Let's send these cowards running once and for all!"

What did he even need Leopara for?

A loud roaring sound boomed in the distance. Leopara looked around in confusion as a hush fell. The droning roar grew louder and louder, yet they could not see it.

And then… this _thing,_ dark and not dissimilar to an arrow flew over their heads, creating a wind so strong Leopara had to cover her face, hair whipping even in its bun. She turned to watch it soar over the walls, a white trail left in its wake.

They all did in stunned, fearful silence. 

More followed, and confusion and apprehension turned to icy fear.

Giant plumes of flames and black smoke burst from within the city, one after another. _What the-_

A loud whirring, metallic and hissing sound thundered from the treeline. Leopara's eyes grew wide as she watched one after another of these metal… _things_ strode from the treeline.

"By Thundera! What sorcery is this?"

It wasn't. She would sense it. In horrified awe, she murmured, "Technology…"

The machines continued marching forward, unwavering. They fired more missiles. The ground shook and the air blackened as even more of the city exploded into flames.

Behind the machines, the lizards emerged from the forest wearing helmets of iron, red goggles that glinted and flashed in the darkness, and brandishing long pole-like weaponry with a barrel and blade at the end. More technology.

They unleashed shot after shot, green blasts of plasma that drove the cats back. She thrust her scepter outstretched, channeling her thoughts and magics. A large, rippling barrier, like a whirling layer of water, sprung to life between her and the lizards, large enough to shield the other cats. She focused hard, straining to maintain such a large barrier, and one under such assault. "Ergch…" she grunted, grinding her teeth.

"Quickly, behind the wall! Behind the wall!" Claudus commanded. 

Behind her, she could hear the clanking of pauldrons and chest-plates as the soldiers retreated, running with haste over the bridge. They stopped, gasping loudly. She dared glance over her shoulder, a bead of sweat dripping over her fur.

Standing in the open gates, cutting off their retreat and surrounding them, were more lizards. A great fire raged beyond them.

"How quickly things change for the cats." Slythe said with malice. "From top predator to endangered species," he raised his hand, revealing some sort of handle with a red button, "-in a single day!" He pressed the button.

Explosions rippled under the bridge, one after another. Leopara's mount reared back, panicked. Leopara's eyes widened as she was thrown. Her barrier shuddered. As she hit the ground with her shoulders, it collapsed, just as the bridge was. Breaking and coming apart with screams from all the cats that had been on it.

She gasped for breath and rolled to her side, climbing to her knees.

"Will nothing stop them?" Claudus gazed at the bridge and all its buried soldiers in horror. The machines continued firing their missiles on the city. Explosions rang out in a sickening rhythm.

_No..._

Grune approached, his movement catching her attention and her eyes snapped onto him. "I believe there is one thing, my lord." 

He grabbed a hand held device from his pouch and raised it in the air, pointing at the sky, and pulled its trigger. A ball of light shot into the air, leaving behind a trail of wispy smoke. It burst into a brighter light that lingered in the sky.

Leopara could hear the whir as every machine ground to a stop. She climbed to her feet and backed away towards Grune. "It was right in front of me this whole time…" she murmured in disbelief.

His sense of wrongness, his ambition, his glee at this attack.

Claudus and Tygra both looked around, confused. They didn't know. Even now, Grune stood with his back to lizards, falling in line behind him.

"Grune, what is going on?"

Grune reached up and grasped the red stone of Thundera upon his chest and pulled. His armor creaked, and the straps snapped as he discarded it, followed by his helmet. The lizards offered forward a golden armor, and he put it on without breaking eye contact with the aghast king. His 'old friend.'

After he finished donning his helm, a lizard brought forth his weapon. A great and terrible mace, its club dotted with spikes.

"You sent me out to find the Book of Omens, Claudus. Instead, I found this." He smiled down at his mace as he settled its haft into his hands. "Ultimate power."

The segmented club parted, green electricity crackling. After a moment of building power, it released a green beam of energy that could have easily destroyed, or at least harmed, any of them. Instead, he used it to destroy a low-sitting lion statue.

"You would betray your own species?" Claudus demanded.

Leopara readied herself to create another barrier and pour everything she had into it. Anything that could keep them alive. Jaga hadn't arrived yet.

Even though the army was wiped out, they could still survive this.

"My allegiance to you has earned me nothing. Therefore, I have aligned myself with a superior force." He said it like it was the simplest, most logical thing. His eyes fixed on the Sword of Omens worn on Claudus's left hand. "And I will take what I want."

"Never!" 

Claudus drew the sword and it glinted in the choked moonlight, its blade growing automatically. He settled into a defensive stance. Every muscle in Leopara's body strained from the tension as she waited to make her move.

"There's no need to resort to violence," Grune rested the club of his mace flat against the dirt and stood unconcerned. "I'm quite willing to make a deal for the sword." 

"There is nothing you have that I want."

Grune raised his hand to gesture silently. Slythe turned to his lizards. _Damn it… we're surrounded on two sides…_ she cursed herself for forgetting. _Jaga… hurry, please._

"Bring forth the prisoner." Slythe commanded.

A giant machine that left Leopara gobsmacked rolled forth, rumbling over debris and grinding stone down, whirring as it came to an idling stop. The lizards shone a light on its long barrel- no, on something dangling. Vile and malice pierced Leopara and she groaned from discomfort, taking a step back into Tygra. 

"Panthro!" Claudus exclaimed. "You're alive!"

 _No… it's not…_ the words choked in her throat as her chest constricted. It was… it was… that _presence._

"Do we have a deal?"

_No!_

Claudus whirled on Grune, growling. Grune sighed and raised his mace. "I didn't think you would go for it. I guess I will have to take the sword from you!" he grinned, lopsided by his sabertooth.

"You are forgetting one thing, Grune." He adjusted his stance. "Jaga's clerics."

Grune's widened, just as the whistling of the wind reached Leopara's ears. She turned her face to look. Plumes of dust rose high into the air, and widened as the clerics turned towards them. The clerics were upon Grune and the lizards within a heartbeat. She recognised Cheetara, even under her robes, skillfully leap and dodge around Grune before swiftly disarming and disabling him. Groaning, Grune fell into the dirt. The others set upon the lizards, nimbly side stepping and twirling out of the way of the lizards's blasts.

Sunda and Sundara swiftly dispatched a line by themselves, working in perfect tandem.

"I'm going after Panthro." Claudus announced, seeing the clerics had the battle well in hand. He turned and began to run, but Tygra was practiced at running down lions and catching them on the shoulder, and panic coursed through Leopara. Tygra grabbed his left, she grabbed his right.

"You can't leave the protection of the clerics!"

Claudus shook off Tygra. "And I can't leave my friend with those monsters!" He batted Leopara away.

"It is a _trap,"_ Leopara pleaded. "It's not Panthro!"

Her words fell upon unlistening ears. Claudus leapt down onto the crumbled bridge's remains and hopped his way across. Adrenaline propelled Leopara forward, hard on Tygra's heels as they chased Claudus.

"King Claudus!" she shouted.

All around them in the city streets, fires burned, consuming wood, foods, and the bodies of innocent cats, slain in cold blood while their defenders were outside the walls, besieged by technology they couldn't compete with on such a scale. It was sickening, the smell. She gagged and coughed, waving her scepter to conjure a gust of wind that cleared the air, and extinguished some of the fires. Claudus moved with single minded focus, so much quicker and enduring than her. Her muscles and lungs burned as she panted, stumbled, but pushed herself forward.

_Forward, froward, forward._

The deep tracks the machine left in the ash and dirt and blood led to the coliseum, the once-pretty blue glow now eerie and somehow altogether _wrong._

It was a trap.

Claudus didn't stop. He didn't care.

Somehow, Grune had gotten there first. He stood atop a winding branch, looking down upon them as they rushed in. Up higher, above him, the false Panthro, the _presence_ hung, chains around his arms holding him upright and limply on his tip toes.

"Your rule has come to a long overdue end, Claudus. Now drop your inferior weapons!" he demanded smugly. Lizards began to swarm around them. Tygra backed up against Claudus, almost like he was surprised this was a trap, despite Leopara saying so. "How can you defeat technology if you don't even understand it?"

The lizards hissed and raised their guns, herding them into a circle. Leopara readied herself. Nothing had changed, they still needed that barrier.

 _"Luckily, I know a thing or two about it, you traitor!"_ Lion-O's hoarse, enraged voice called. Three of the disks, almost too fast to see, spun through the air and landed on the mechas. They beeped rapidly, detonating.

The three mechas surrounding them exploded with such force her tunic- her dress, really, but now she wore darker pants- and war cloak whipped around her waist.

Smoke filled the air, obscuring their vision. The whipping wind blew most of it away, and Lion-O emerged through the smoke atop a nervous mount, a brown satchel at his side. He had his head up, eyes forward. Proud, but fiercely angry. He drew to a stop in front of his father, who raised his gauntleted arm and bowed his head to Lion-O.

Then, Claudus turned, cloak billowing behind him.

"Where are you going?" Lion-O asked.

"To show the lizards that the Sword of Omens is the greatest weapon of them all." He drew the blade, immediately extending to its full length. Leopara was unsure whether it actually glowed with determination, or if it was an effect of the pool around them. But Claudus raised it above his head, pointing towards the sky above. It definitely glowed now, crackling as energy began to surge. "Thundercats ho!"

The sword burst with lightning. Leopara watched in awe. 

Claudus charged forward, cutting through the lizards in his way, those who had recovered from the explosion and adopted a defensive stance, with powerful swings that left arcs of light in his wake. He made his way up, up to Grune. Grune aimed his pace at Claudus and began to charge a blast. He fired it, crackling green energy blasting towards Claudus. Undeterred, he raised Omens and blocked it with the Eye of Thundera. A small field forced the energy to part around him and he batted it away after a moment, leaping towards Grune with a heavy strike.

Like a kitten, Grune was knocked out of his way and fell prone onto a branch below, groaning in pain.

It was only as Claudus ran towards the _presence_ that Leopara broke from her reverie. "No!" she screamed so loud her throat felt hoarse. She took a step forward, mind racing faster than her body could act. She had to get Claudus away from it! 

Claudus ignored her and cut his chains. It fell onto the branch, groaning. He looked up. "You came for me." It said in Panthro's gruff voice.

"I'd fight an army twice that size to save you, old friend."

Lion-O and Tygra chased her.

Claudus turned his back to the impostor and raised the sword. "Now help me!"

"Move!" she yelled at him. Claudus looked at her, her wide eyes of horror and his sons' as the impostor drew a blade, and finally realised. He turned, but it was too late.

Lion-O reached for him. Everything seemed to slow, stretching those agonising milliseconds into eternity. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would leap from her chest. 

"Father! No!"

'Panthro' sunk his dagger into Claudus's chest. He screamed in pain, then fell limp and silent down the tree.

Tygra stopped in his tracks, watching in disbelief.

The sword fell from Claudus's grasp as he hit one of the branches, _thud,_ and continued falling _down down down_ into the water. It splashed, swallowing him under its surface.

Omens sung quietly, a dying sound, as it fell through the air and stabbed into a branch.

Without hesitation, Lion-O leapt from the great height. He dived into the water after his father. Tygra ran to dive as well, while Leopara jumped down the branches and to the water's shore and waited for them, shaking.

Lion-O resurfaced with him and, together, the brothers swam him to her. "Lay him down! I- I can heal him!"

Tygra carried him to the branch and they each helped gently lay him down, left arm over his waist. Leopara fell to her knees and put her hands to his chest. He looked so close to death, blood dripping from his injury and expression contorted, his mane somber.

She closed her eyes as Claudus breathed painfully. She could see it bloom as she focused, but there was a darkness around it, a purple. 

"Father." Lion-O said, voice trembling.

"No matter what happens, you made me proud today."

"Sh-sh," she shushed him, taking a deep breath. The pain, it was slipping away- she pushed her magic through, but it was gone. She opened her eyes and frantically pleaded, "No, Claudus, I can- you're going to be okay! I can heal you!"

But the gauntlet on his arm had already lost its lustrous gold color, turning a cold gray.

"No…" tears welled in her eyes and spilled down as the impostor, the kingslayer, laughed.

Lion-O looked up with anger in his eyes. "You… a traitor too, Panthro!?"

"Not quite. Have you not considered that if," his voice began to change, "technology is real, then so are the things of your worst nightmares?"

Blue flames erupted around the form of Panthro, and from it, emerged the hideous face of…

"Mumm-Ra."


	4. Devastation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for the kudos and the bookmark, and I really appreciate the comment! I do respond to them, so if you want to say anything, I do read them and they always make my day~ I hope you guys enjoy this chapter- after it, I'm moving on to Ramlak Rising!

The visage of Mumm-Ra was one of grey skin pulled taut over sharp bones and a sunken, hideous nose like that of a short-nosed bat, with pure red eyes glaring down at them through the blue flames that wrapped around his emaciated, sharp body wrapped in ancient linen and swallowed by a tattered and torn cloak that seemed to drip blood.

Above him, the sky roiled angrily, a swirling vortex of dark clouds and purple magics. At its center: Mumm-Ra. Lightning crackled in the eye of the storm.

Without his disguise concealing him, Leopara was pulled under the surface by the overwhelming malice, lashing out and wrapping around her, and evil suffocating her.

Her vision swam, filled with spots.

She saw without seeing, struggling in her own mind to oppress her "gift." 

Dots streaked across the sky, moving impossibly fast. Mumm-Ra turned to them with a malicious grin full of sharp teeth. "You are but insects," he unfurled his cloak gathering energy at an alarming rate that exploded as he continued to speak in his rasping voice, "to the power of Mumm-Ra, the everliving!" The wave of purple consumed all but two of the dots, one having leapt up and pulled the other down.

As they landed on the root of the tree, as she saw Cheetara cradling Jaga, Leopara realised…

Those dots had been the clerics. Sunda, Sundara, Cheetaro, Jaggen…

And the wave of purple that rippled over the skies had killed them all.

The malice and evil let go of Leopara as icy cold horror surrounded her. She cried out, "No! Jaga!" On unsteady legs, she ran to them- or tried to. A gun pointed directly at her, herding her back to Lion-O and Tygra. More and more lizards streamed into the coliseum, surrounding them more and more. Leopara's magic felt dead in her fingertips, needles of ice tingling in her skin from the agony.

As she looked all around she could see the orange glow of fires in the sky, thick plumes of black smoke. "Thundera has fallen!"

The lizards raised their guns and fists in uproarious cheers.

She fell to her knees against the rough bark, numbed once again.

* * *

Tears stung Leopara's eyes as she was pushed into the floor besides Jaga.

All of the signs had been right there, but she let them slide through her fingers like sand. She hadn't wanted to pursue them, so she lived in anxious ignorance and suffered the consequences.

The disgusting stench of Mumm-Ra filled the room. The smooth marble floor was stained with smoke and cracked from the head of Cat's Lair being toppled, and his evil presence only profaned it more. The only light was two small sconces that burned dirtily, polluting the air even more.

"These three are all that remain of the fabled guardians of the crown." A lizard, dark murky green and muscular announced, pushing Jaga down beside her. He strained against its foot, but it won.

Jaga was too physically weak to withstand the pressure for long. He groaned in pain and exclaimed as the lizard ground his head into the sooty stone out of spite before waltzing away.

Leopara's back and ribs still hurt from the same treatment. "Jaga!" she shouted in a whisper, breathing heavily. She squirmed, trying to reach out towards him. A useless effort, for her arms were bound behind her.

Cheetara hung from the pillar, chains circling around her and more holding up her hands, wrapping around her feet. It seemed so heavy.

"You are Jaga," Mumm-Ra gestured with a hand, the other clutching the arm of Claudus's throne, "-sorcerer to the dead king."

"And you are even more grotesque than the stories suggested."

Mumm-Ra grinned with gleeful malice. His teeth were yellowed. "Did your stories neglect to tell you that the stone in that sword is mine?" He reached up to grasp the grip of Omens. The magics protecting the Sword of Omens flared to life, the Eye glinting. Lightning crackled around it, lashing out instantly and furiously against the hand of Evil that dared to attempt to touch it.

"Aaaaagh!" Mumm-Ra screamed in pain, staggering away. He recovered, hissing. "I want it back."

"I'm afraid an ancient spell prevents the sword from being touched by the hands of evil." Jaga said with some petty satisfaction in his voice.

"That is why you are going to remove the spell!" 

"Never!"

Mumm-Ra eyed Jaga gleefully. "Then I will just have to find another way!" He reached into his cloak, then flung up his arms. His mummification wrapping surged towards Jaga, whipping and _fwip-_ ing through the air. They wrapped around Jaga, lifting him into the air. 

"Jaga!" Leopara cried out, struggling. A heavy foot slammed into her back and her head cracked against the stone. She gasped in pain, struggling for air with the foot crushing her. 

Mumm-Ra laughed maniacally and outstretched his arms. Lightning of purple, crackling around Mumm-Ra, arced towards him.

Purple light lit the room as Leopara watched, horrified. Jaga grunted and groaned in pain, resilient to the torture. Mumm-Ra let out an otherworldly roar and channeled more magic into his lightning. Jaga screamed in pain. "Ah." Mumm-Ra said in satisfaction.

"Stop… stop it!" she shouted through painful breath. The lizard moved his foot to her head and she cried out in pain as he pushed against her skull. Her head throbbed from pain.

She didn't hear the lightning anymore.

Leopara opened her eyes to the sight of the wrappings setting down Jaga. "You also wear the sorcerer's cloak." He observed. The lizard stepped off, but the disgusting, filthy bandages wound around her, and she was lifted into the air. Her ribs ached and protested, she groaned. "You are his apprentice, Leopara. How rude of me not to attend to you." Leopara's head spun as she looked down at the floor. Confused, she raised it to look at Mumm-Ra. "Perhaps if your master will not be swayed by his own pain, _yours_ will suffice!" he exclaimed with glee as he pointed his hand towards her. Her body went cold as the purple lightning raced to cross the distance.

Blinding, searing pain scattered through her fur. She screamed, loudly she was sure, but she couldn't hear anymore. Her vision blacked out, nothing but technicolored spots against a world of black for a moment.

Just as abruptly, she fell beside Jaga, hitting the ground hard with a whimper.

She heard Mumm-Ra hiss in anger, but her senses were slow in returning to her. The lizards opened fire against something or someone, but it wasn't her. _Jaga?_ Leopara turned her head to look towards him, vision swimming. She saw three of him, spinning in a nauseating circle until her eyes finally focused.

No, he wasn't getting shot at.

_Cheetara?_

She craned her neck. Cheetara was still in chains. She also wasn't being shot at. _Who…?_

"You took my father's life, but you won't take his sword!" Lion-O shouted. _Lion-O?_ "Thunder, thunder, thunder! Thundercats ho!" Red light flooded the room as she struggled to look up. A beam of red energy burst forth from the Eye of Thunder, blasting into Mumm-Ra and hurtling him through the wall.

She could hear Mumm-Ra's voice, steadily growing in volume as he led into, _"Mumm-Ra, the ever living!"_

Leopara looked up, tired, head pounding and body aching, and looked towards the hole in the wall, just as sunlight began to filter through. _Sunrise._ The sun was the literal and metaphorical enemy of evil. She felt relief, amidst all her emotions.

Two shots from a gun blasted Cheetara's chains, freeing her. She leapt into action, kicking her lizard guard in a smooth action, then standing at attention.

"Cheetara?" Tygra asked, shock and relief in his voice

Leopara closed her eyes and focused on her aches and pain, and drew, with tremendous effort in her exhaustion, to let the healing magic flow through her. She took a deep breath, finding no pain, and sighed. 

She drew into that well again and focused her atten on her bindings, willing them to come undone; and the ropes binding her wrist frayed and unraveled. Leopara yanked her hands apart, snapping the rope, and with an angry yell, twisted to slash the ones binding her ankles before panting heavily. Rage welled up inside her, unlike she had felt before. She took a deep breath, and then crawled to Jaga and cut his bindings. 

"We need to go!" she shouted over the din of combat, the blasting of the lizards' guns as reinforcements, draping his arm over her shoulders. They stood together. She couldn't say definitively if she helped him up or if he helped her.

But once they were both standing, they sprinted towards the sullied throne. Cheetara picked up the gauntlet, holding it close to her chest. Jaga ran ahead, turning the sconce. 

The wall shifted, sliding back and up. 

"Quickly, through here." He pointed inside. Snarf ran in first, followed quickly by Cheetara and then Leopara, hurrying hastily into passage with the princes hard on her heels.

 _"After them!"_ Mumm-Ra shouted.

She stopped to look back at Jaga, waiting. "Jaga, hurry!"

He took no more than two steps inside, his stride hastened by urgency, than the lizards swarmed around the throne, firing their blasters.

Jaga exclaimed quietly in pain as her eyes opened wide. She rushed to him as the door slammed shut. "Jaga!" He slumped against her, groaning in pain. "Come on, Jaga, just a little further… you'll be alright." Cheetara slipped under his other arm, steadying him.

The room trembled and small flakes broke free, crumbling around them.

"Before we go further, there is something that must be done."

"It can wait." Cheetara said.

Jaga shook his head and took his arm from Cheetara. "No." He took his arm from Leopara as well, struggling for a moment to balance himself. "It must be now!"

Lion-O circled around in front of them, peering through them towards the wall.

"Your left arm." Jaga asked. Lion-O blinked but complied. From Cheetara, Jaga grabbed the gauntlet and slid it onto Lion-O's arm. Lion-O flexed his fingers, inspecting them. Jaga kneeled and Leopara followed his example, as did Cheetara and Tygra. "For the Eye of Thundera and the Sword of Omens." Jaga tapped his staff lightly against the metal.

The dull gray glistened to life and glowed gold, illuminating Lion-O's shocked face.

"Now, Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats, go." Jaga commanded in the most exhausted voice Leopara had ever heard from him. 

"We're not leaving you behind!" Leopara protested.

"You're coming with us, Jaga." claimed Cheetara.

Jaga stood weakly, clutching his staff. Leopara stepped forward to support him, but he brushed her away. "I will only slow you down. At least this way, I can buy you time to get to safety." Jaga lurched towards Lion-O, clasping his shoulder. "The Book of Omens lies at the foot of the setting sun. You must find it before Mumm-Ra does."

"I can't do this alone." Lion-O pleaded with him.

"You won't have to. You have everything you need, Lion-O. Whatever answers remain, the answers are in the Book of Omens. Find it. Now go!" Jaga shoved Lion-O and pushed his staff into her hands.

"Jaga!" Leopara exclaimed. "You won't survive without this!"

The wall shattered to bits at Grune's mace struck it, green, crackling discharge scattering through the smoke and dust.

"Go!" Jaga shouted.

"But-!" 

Cheetara grabbed her arm and pulled her. "We have to go, Leopara!"

She craned her head to watch Jaga, flashes of green and blue, rumbling thunder as he made his last stand. How was he channeling his magic?

Tears rolled down her face, even before the yellow explosion and green lightning collided with him. He screamed in pain, flung back- 

Another door slammed shut just behind her.

* * *

They ran for what seemed like eternity, even longer than the night before. Leopara cried most of that time. At some point, she yanked her arm free from Cheetara. _"We can't just leave him!"_

_"Leopara, he's gone. It was his final wish we leave!"_

They had continued running, but it was a struggle for her to keep up between not being quite as fit as any of the three and choking on air through hiccuped sobs.

To a beautiful sky, light blue and dotted with wispy clouds, they emerged. 

The radiant sunlight shone down on the wreckage of Thundera. Billows of black smoke still arose amongst all the white marble. Once beautiful trees and gardens, lush and green and full of life, were blackened, the ash from their leaves and bark staining the once crystal-clear, cascading pools of water grey and sludgy.

The long stretch to Cat's Lair was shattered in several places. The palace's blue head lay cracked and broken on its side amongst broken marble.

Mockingly, the coliseum was untouched.

"This is only the beginning." Lion-O said as they all stared down at the ruins they once called home.

Leopara looked down at Jaga's staff in her hands. It was ancient, smoothed by the hands of generations of sorcerers. Atop the staff rested two light-and-dark swirls, one unfurling and curling into the other. At the bottom, the dark staff unraveled into several thin strips that twisted and rejoined to spiral tightly to a round point, also a mix of light and dark wood.

It was not meant to hit things with. It was a focus, an old and ancient one that magic thrummed through.

She tightened her grip. The staff creaked slightly and she closed her eyes.

_Jaga… why?_

She took a breath and sighed softly, willing it to alter itself. The length of the staff retracted, gliding across her fur like a rope slipping through, and it began to shrink. She reached up and put it into her hair, entangling it so it secured a bun. A messy bun, but a bun nonetheless.

She would keep his staff safe.

Tygra and Lion-O glanced at her, then gazed back out at Thundera.

She did not need magic to know how they felt. The rage, the sorrow, the helplessness… but also the steely determination settling in. Leopara could feel it for herself.

But it was good she did not need her "gift" to know, because she could not sense anything around her. In her inner world, it was a barren land of snow all around her. Cold, desolate, and numbing. A few snowflakes fell around… but in real life, those snowflakes were flakes of ash.

"We should keep moving. Find supplies and start to follow the sun." she suggested.

Wordless, Lion-O turned and led the way. Up high in these cliffs, there was a trail winding down to the city below.

"We should find Father." Tygra said quietly. "He deserves a proper cremation."

Leopara nodded and looked at Cheetara. "We could go to the cleric hall… perhaps the supplies will still be there?"

"Yes…" Cheetara agreed, looking out over the edge of the path where their home once was. "We could look for survivors." They both knew there were no survivors of the adults, but perhaps the younglings escaped or hid themselves. "And get clothes."

Leopara looked down at her cloak, so similar to Jaga's in color and design. It was tattered and stained. She looked at her "tunic" and leggings, her gloves. They were smudged with soot and stained with King Claudus's blood.

More than anything in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to cast them all into a fire, put the cloak to rest in honor of all those who had died… the clerics, Jaga, Claudus, the innocents and the soldiers… so many. Too many. She looked out at the sunny streets, a broken memory of what once was. Shattered stone walls and dreams, hopes and desires.

All snuffed out in a single night.

It was too much.

* * *

They reached the city in the evening and traveled together to the cleric's hall. Where the statue of King Claudus had once stood outside the palace, was now a shattered effigy.

Like everything else, the cleric hall was cracked and broken in places. The doors creaked too loudly in the silence as she and Cheetara pushed them open. Leopara ran her fingers over the studded wood, a part of her life for so long.

She had never noticed their creak with the sounds of life in the streets and training room.

The pendulums stood still and the hall empty. She climbed the stairs to the right, _creeeee, creeee, creeee,_ with every step, and gently made her way down the hall. She raised her fingers and dragged them against the stone wall. Her eyes studied every detail.

Everything seemed so grey now. Lifeless.

She wanted to remember it as it was, bright and full of life even amongst a storm. Chatter and laughter once carried through these halls. Younglings ran quickly past, chastised by their elders and mentors, while others chuckled heartily at their youthful energy and enthusiasm. She had shaken her head in affection before, sometimes sighed wistfully. Oh, what she would have given at times to run the way they did.

Her claws scraped against the doorframe of her bedroom. She paused.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and imagined her room the way she left it. Neat, organised. Ambient light filtering inside.

She stepped inside, opening her eyes.

The mirror of her vanity was broken, shattered pieces scattered around. Everything was disorderly from the shaking of the ground and stained by smoke that came in through the window. Her curtain had fallen and so had her armoire. A thin crack raced through the stone floor.

Leopara carefully stepped through and to her armoire. Grunting from the effort, and joined halfway by Tygra, she pushed it upright. One leg was broken, so it wobbled. The door was cracked and broken, and the top of the frame splintered, from falling.

"Thank you." she said, shoulders sagging.

Tygra merely nodded and handed her a sack before he meandered out. Leopara opened the armoire. The door snapped from its hinge completely in her hand.

Sighing, she tossed it to the side and looked inside.

Her clothes were all in disarray, but they weren't stained by smoke or blood, so she considered it one, tiny little win amongst all the loss.

She peeled off her gloves and poured a little water from her waterskin, all the way across the floor from where she had left it- cats get thirsty at night, and she still hadn't slept properly since the morning of Lion-O's ceremony- into a small bowl with a chip in its lip and a crack running down. Miraculously, it didn't leak.

Leopara washed her hands with a wet rag. Claudus's blood had dried in specks on her fur, mixed with ash and soot. She stripped from her clothes and washed the rest of herself with that rag, before pulling on new clothes. Sturdier clothes she had only ever worn when Jaga insisted on long, spiritual hikes.

She got the feeling the four of them and Snarf would be hiking a lot in the coming days.

Into her bag, she put one of her dresses. Extra gloves and extra leggings and footwraps. A hairbrush, ribbons for her hair. Wash clothes. The small, cracked bowl.

Leopara looked around one last time. Ash had settled in her room, over her broken and caved bed, over the floor and the back of the armoire and the vanity. Soot stained the shards of the mirror on the floor.

She hoped she didn't cut herself on a piece as she left.

She returned downstairs, where Cheetara was kneeling and looking through a sack. Lion-O and Tygra stood near. She murmured, _"Food, water… this everything."_

Had she even changed clothes or gone to her room?

There was still room in Leopara's sack.

"I want to look around some more. I won't be long." She could see Lion-O's impatience strain, but he clenched his jaw and said nothing.

Leopara slipped through the hall towards the library, but turned to the clerics room. She had been to Cheetara's before, a long time ago. She smoothed her hand over the cracked wooden door, splintered and barely held together, before pushing it open. It dragged harshly over the floor.

Cheetara's room was in disarray in much the same fashion as Leopara's. Dust and grits of stone fell from the ceiling.

She approached the armoire, carefully stepping over splintered wood and broken glass. Hers was on its side. She opened it. There was a nicer outfit inside, the same cleric brown and with leather, but untattered or torn. Leopara grabbed it and a long leather cord, and into her sack they went. She paused, and grabbed the other ankle weights Cheetara trained with, and the accompanying leather straps and gird.

With that, she made her way into the library. Shelves were toppled and collapsed, pages from the tomes were scattered everywhere, thrown from their bindings, and scrolls were unraveled, some torn. Tables were broken from the force of a heavy shelf falling into them. Chairs were tossed, on their back or sides, many missing legs or back, or splinted and cracked deeply. 

Leopara picked her way through the mess, her heart heavy. It was unrecognisable.

A shelf blocked her way into the turret. She groaned and exclaimed from exertion as she climbed between it and the wall to push it. It scraped painfully over the floor. Splinters from it stuck to her fur as she straightened, panting.

Leopara plucked them as she opened the cracked door. Like everything else, it was too loud. It creaked and whined more than she had noticed before.

The shelf in the turret had fallen over forwards, smashing into the table, now broken and collapsed, and the chairs. She pushed it up, grunting. Its contents were spilled over the floor.

Leopara crouched down and picked up a little leather bound book. Her prize.

She put it into the sack.

* * *

No one asked her what she had searched for. With only, "Is that everything we need?" and Cheetara's answering: 

"For now."

They left the cleric hall. The rest of the city was just as battered or worse than the hall- all save the coliseum. Smoke stained its sides, but it stood otherwise untouched. A beacon of negative memories.

Birds had begun to circle overhead. Carrion creatures that would scavenge the dead… an unfortunate and necessary purpose in nature, but upsetting nonetheless.

As they entered the coliseum, the glow of its water vanished in the daylight, a couple of carrion birds hopped on the branch towards Claudus. One nipped at his hand as if to ask _"hey, are you alive?"_ Its beak caught in his fur. Stiffly, but limp, Claudus's hand flopped towards it. They hopped backwards.

"Hey!" Lion-O roared, charging. He slipped his hand into the gauntlet and drew the Sword of Omens. "Get away from him!" He swung at them.

They squawked indignantly in alarm and flapped their great wings, taking to the skies.

Tygra hurried to catch up and knelt beside their father's body. He raised a clenched fist, trembling from anger. "He didn't deserve this… to be left for the carrion feeders." 

"Let's take him somewhere with shelter, to light his pyre." Cheetara said calmly, resting her hand on Tygra's shoulder. The prince looked up at her and nodded, his eyes closing and some of the tension draining from his body.

Not far from King Claudus, she spotted her scepter. Leopara wandered to it, carefully grasping the handle and turning it over in her hand. Satisfied it wasn't cracked, she settled it against her hip.

The brothers carried their father in Leopara's cloak, stretched between them. _Fitting._

Not too far, there was an alcove.

Leopara still hadn't seen any sign of survivors.

"Here will be good." Cheetara said, gesturing. "It was a shrine to the gods." The brothers nodded and set Claudus down, standing guard while Cheetara worked to build the small pyre using the supplies they had gathered. A slightly magical pyre, built with the interwoven staves that had remained in the cleric hall. It had been easy enough to fit them all in one bag, and she expanded each one to its full length for this purpose.

Leopara wandered away, not to far, and climbed a pile of rubble. A stone slipped under her and she nearly tripped. At the top, she looked around. It was dusk now. She could neither see lizards nor mecha, nor any movement that was not the birds swooping down and taking flight. She couldn't see any other cats.

It couldn't be just them, could it?

There had been no younglings at the hall, but neither had there been bodies.

They had seen plenty of buried bodies on their way here, crushed under the rubble and debris and burned horribly.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Helllloooo!" she called. The ruins carried her voice, but she heard no response. "Is there anyone there?!"

A hand jerked her shoulder. Tygra. "What are you doing?" he hissed.

Leopara brushed him off. "There could be survivors!"

"There could be lizards, too, and you'd be telling them exactly where we are!" he growled.

She swung her arm wide open and gestured. "Do you _see_ any lizards, Tygra? Their army has left! If there are survivors, we need to find them now!"

"If any cats survived, they've already left too."

With that, Tygra turned away and stalked back to the shrine. 

Leopara looked out over the devastated city and sighed heavily. Maybe Tygra was right. The younglings weren't at the hall, so they must have left. Any cat sane would have fled, too, and those that didn't… surely they were already dead.

With a heavy heart, she sighed again and dropped her head. Reluctant, she turned away from the city and rejoined the three and Snarf.

Little did she know, a she-cat trapped under rubble struggled to hold onto life.


	5. A New Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back everyone! I hope you all enjoy this chapter. It's a bit of a transitional chapter, but so was the beginning of Ramlak Rising.

Somehow, Leopara managed to sleep, too exhausted to stay awake, curled up against debris beside the statue within the shrine. They all did while King Claudus's pyre burned on. For lungs that had breathed in too much smoke the night before, it was hardly wise of her or any of them, but the dome ceiling had caved in and the walls were theoretical, merely columns to hold up the dome. 

There were plenty of ways for the smoke plume to funnel out of the shrine.

She woke up to rays of sun hitting her face. On one side, Cheetara pressed against her in a ball. On the other, Lion-O had his back to her, lightly pressing against her side. Snarf cuddled on her lap, snoring softly.

Tygra laid on the other side of Cheetara, his head resting on her shoulder.

Leopara carefully picked up Snarf and set him down. He looked up at her with wide eyes, his red fur standing on, the yellow stripe, his hackles, raised. He shrieked, _"Snyaaa, sn- snya?"_

"It's just me, Snarf." she told him, exhausted.

 _"Snya~"_ he scampered across the littered floor, hopping onto a chunk of stone.

Leopara carefully extricated herself from Cheetara, lowering her so she rest against the lingering warmth Leopara left behind. 

The fire of Claudus's pyre had begun to burn low. She carefully placed more staves on it; the king's body was not yet ash. She stared into the fire for a couple of minutes. After all she had seen, the flickering flames should have made her uneasy, but instead, they entranced her. A calm fell over her, different somehow from numbness and sadness.

A hand on her shoulder startled her. She looked up to see Cheetara peering down at her with her pink eyes. 

"Cheetara! I didn't wake you, did I?"

She smiled. "Only a little." she looked at the flames and back down at Leopara. "Are you…" she hesitated. Leopara knew what she was going to ask. They both knew the real answer: 

No.

"I'm… okay."

She was alive and relatively uninjured. Physically, she was fine. But she was not okay. None of them were _okay._

Leopara turned her attention back to the pyre and stood. "I can't stop thinking about… any of it. They're all… gone. Even… even Jaga."

"I know." Cheetara breathed. 

"And we left him behind."

Cheetara squeezed her shoulder. "He wanted us to escape."

"I know."

Tygra shifted, claws scraping against the stone as he stirred. He yawned mightily and stretched with a grimace before standing. Leopara doubted he had ever slept in an uncomfortable bed before, and certainly not on the ground.

But he didn't complain. He moved to stand beside them, looking into the pyre of his father. The gold of Claudus's circlet glinted in the flames.

"We should wake Lion-O and get moving soon."

"How did we all end up sleeping there anyways?" Leopara asked, when what she really meant was, _why did I go asleep alone and wake up surrounded?_

Cheetara smiled. "There weren't any blankets, so we thought it might be best if we slept near each other." she explained smoothly. 

Leopara replayed the previous evening in her mind. "You mean… you forgot blankets?" Hadn't they gone to the Hall for supplies? A small sigh. She supposed she couldn't be too upset… Cheetara had gathered the supplies for Claudus's funeral. And food and water. 

She hadn't even gotten her own clothes.

Which is what Leopara had done immediately, and she hadn't grabbed any either.

"We'll find some more as we make our way out of the city." Tygra reassured her. "But it's not safe to stay here. It's a miracle we weren't caught last night." He gestured to the flames and looked around.

"We chose the shrine because it would be obscured and we could all rest." Leopara reminded him with a simple raise of her hand.

Tygra continued. "Nonetheless, we should wake Lion-O."

"The sooner we leave, the more likely we will reach the Book of Omens before Mumm-Ra does. Like Jaga wanted." Cheetara said, looking down.

Leopara made eye contact with Tygra. A silent battle was fought in that moment, and Leopara lost. She sighed and trudged her way towards Lion-O, despite that he was _Tygra's_ brother and he was the one who wanted Lion-O awake now. 

She kneeled down behind Lion-O and gently shook his shoulder. 

He startled upright, slamming his hand over the gauntlet and growling deeply. She jerked away, hackles raised in alarm. For a moment, his wide blue eyes did not look like those of a cat, but a feral beast. He blinked, tension draining, but not completely. His shoulders remained taut and poised.

But his eyes looked like his eyes… a pretty blue, albeit hardened with anger when they had once been soft and expressive.

"Your father's pyre is almost finished." she told him, standing. She offered him her hand. He took it, squeezing a bit too hard as she helped pull him to his feet. She rubbed her hand a little as he walked towards the flames, Snarf trotting behind him. "We should continue on, soon." Leopara moved to stand beside Cheetara. On the other side stood Tygra.

They all stared into the flames for a minute, its crackles the only sound as Lion-O remained silent. 

Cheetara reached into her pouch and tossed the dust into the flames. With a flash, they burned blue for a moment. The moment passed. Leopara heard the scrape of the Sword of Omens as Lion-O drew it.

She watched.

He held the blade into the flames until it glowed red-hot. With a grunt of effort, he stabbed it into the statue's pedestal and carved. The wall made a grating noise as he twisted and pulled Omens through, bits of stone flaking off.

He carved a large circle, and inside, the head of a roaring cat.

The emblem of the Thundercats. 

A symbol to any who saw it, that they were still alive.

With his handiwork complete, Lion-O stepped back. He studied it. Apparently satisfied, he returned to them beside the pyre, where they were quietly watching him. It was not that they were afraid to speak to him. They just did not want to interrupt this moment.

"Rest now to rise again, Father." Lion-O said at last. His expression was morose.

"May your next life show you peace."

They stared there for quite some time, unwilling to move.

Leopara wondered what the others were thinking, staring into the crackling fire. 

She thought of Jaga, the cat that had raised her. To her, he was as much a father as Claudus had been to Tygra, in all but name. She thought of his patient chuckle as she, just a cub, ran to the railing of a balcony overlooking the lakes of Thundera, the cascading pools, and _ooo-_ ed and awed. Of all the times he rested his hand on her shoulder and spoke words of reassurance when she struggled to manifest her magic, an orb of light or crackle of lightning, or the rippling form of a small barrier.

She thought of how he had sacrificed himself for them.

How he had pushed his staff into her hands.

How they had left him behind in the rubble, and he did not get a cremation, and how the staves of clerics had been used for the King's instead...

The fire burned low, eventually. The sun had risen near its peak; it was nearly noon. 

It was ashes and cinders when Lion-O spoke.

"We should move out while the lizards' trail is still fresh. Mumm-Ra's lair is probably past the Sand Sea so we have quite a journey ahead of us." Lion-O turned away and began to walk away.

"Mumm-Ra?" Cheetara questioned. "Jaga told us to first seek out the Book of Omens. Those were my teacher's last words to us…"

"The Book can wait." Lion-O snapped. "It has for centuries."

Anger rose in Leopara.

"But only the Book can provide us with answers, Lion-O." reasoned Tygra.

"Answers?" Lion-O demanded. "I already know who destroyed our city, who killed our king! What other answers do you need?" 

Tygra watched him with a flat expression, but Leopara's hackles rose. Did he think it would be _that_ easy? That their ancestors had just swung a sword at Mumm-Ra the Ever-living, the embodiment of evil? 

Lion-O rolled on. "If it was either one of us on that funeral pyre, Father would have already buried that demon! I intend to do him the same justice."

"And he would have died." Leopara seethed. "How can you give your father justice if you rush headlong into danger and are killed by a force stronger than you? Do you think defeating Mumm-Ra is as simple as swinging your magic sword at him?"

Lion-O turned his furious gaze to her, but she did not cow away. He growled, a rumble from deep within his chest, but she glared at him unfazed and laid her ears back.

It was only Cheetara setting a hand on her shoulder and speaking before Lion-O could that stopped their angry face off and a vicious retort.

"You're angry, Lion-O."

"I should hope I am not the only one!" He glared at them each in turn, lingering on Leopara. "We are going after Mumm-Ra." He took a step. "And that is a command."

"You _are_ the king." Tygra conceded, his voice dripping with displeasure.

He began to follow his brother. Cheetara hesitated, but she did so as well. 

_"Snyo."_ chimed Snarf.

Leopara remained rooted in place, cold, piercing anger roiling within her. _That-!_ She ground her teeth and bristled her fur, clenching her fist so tightly her claws dug into her palms. Only at the stab of the pain did she begin to follow.

But not for Lion-O. Not because he was king.

Because Cheetara followed.

Leopara trailed behind them a few paces, glowering at the back of Lion-O's head. She thought about speaking with him on the balcony the night Grune returned. How optimistic she had been, the way she had wondered at the King he would be.

A gentle but assertive king, one who did not lead with his sword but defended with it. One to usher in peace with the other animals…

Not angry and vengeful.

Leopara took a deep breath and calmed herself.

But never had she imagined this would happen. Abandoning Lion-O wasn't the answer. Guiding him away from this angry path was, and as sorceress to the King… it was her duty. 

"Lion-O," Leopara spoke gently, "We need more supplies. Tygra's armor was taken."

Lion-O half sighed, half growled. "Alright. We'll look for armor and supplies. But we are not _stopping."_

She nodded and looked to Tygra. He returned her nod. 

"There should be smithiea towards the wall." Tygra pointed at the wall, gesturing to the short and mostly demolished buildings a few rows in from it. "That will be our best place to look."

* * *

With great success, Tygra scavenged a set of armor made from the tanks. And by scavenged, Leopara meant he remarked upon how good their plating seemed, and they plotted a scheme using her magic to reshape the large panels into a breastplate, bracers, a sword-belt, and shinguards. 

The murky green armor sat atop a dark blue undersuit, with a belt of rounds of ammunition settled around his waist. The left bracer was much taller than the right, stretching up to his shoulder while the right stopped at around his elbow.

He clenched his hands and rotated his shoulders, stretching and flexing. "Feels good." he said with a nod of approval. 

"We should probably find some sort of armor for Lion-O." Leopara said, gesturing.

While they scavenged for armor, Cheetara was to search for other necessities they could carry. Some sort of blankets for them and food.

Lion-O, begrudgingly, stood on alert atop the broken remnants of a house. He had stopped moving, despite saying they were _not_ stopping.

He was correct, of course. _They_ had not, but _he_ did.

Leopara climbed up the overturned mecha in a scramble, and stood on her knees looking out over the destruction. 

It was so much worse here, towards the outskirts. Near the palace, many buildings had stood mostly intact, but not here. Here, it was a surprise if a wall stood on its own and not because it was sandwiched between piles of rubble. "I think I see an armorsmithy!" she called down to Tygra. "It's a little ways over there." she pointed.

"I think I see it!" he called back.

Relieved, she turned and slid back down the smooth, but dented, mecha and landed somewhat gracefully on the ground. 

"Let's go, before Lion-O has words to say." Tygra says, unenthusiastic.

Leopara nodded.

Together, they trekked across the distance. 

The smithy stood mostly intact, a picture of armor painted onto the front wall. It was covered in soot and ash, which Tygra reached up to wipe away while she ducked inside. Dust crumbled inside and she looked up at the cracked and broken, but not yet collapsed ceiling warily. Leopara prepared to draw from her well of magic to create her barrier if she had to.

But she turned her attention away from it with an apprehensive sigh, and began to look through the rubble from a hole in the wall. She found leathers, and a cracked cuirass.

It was blue like Lion-O's shirt, with a silver lining that ran around the outline of the pectorals. Not too far from it, she saw a silver pauldron and shinguards and a solid looking belt.

She picked up the cuiress and inspected the break. It ran through the center, where it seemed like the caved in wall had fallen on it without anything inside to help it keep shape. But the damage didn't go much farther from there. It held its shape when she held it loosely. With a nod, she drew her scepter and hovered it over.

The cuirass obeyed, the center straightening and pressing back together and melding. She couldn't even see a line where the break had been. Pleased, she collected it and the pauldron, shinguards, and belt she had seen, and carefully backed out of the store, grateful the ceiling hadn't collapsed.

It chose the exact moment she straightened and turned to Tygra outside of its confines to abruptly collapse in on itself with a sudden and violent grating. She startled, looking at it with shock while Tygra gaped a little.

"Um… I found the armor for Lion-O!" she exclaimed lightly, turning her attention away from the smithy and holding up the cuirass and accessories.

Tygra blinked. "Great. Let's get back then."

Leopara nodded and followed him as he led the way.

It took them a few minutes to navigate through, slowed down mostly by having to climb up and down rubble, careful of their footing, and orienting themselves so they didn't get lost in the unrecognisable landscape. The afternoon sun bore down on them.

Tygra pulled at his collar a little, a few beads of sweat dotting his fur.

"I have a few regrets about this armor."

"We're already on our way back, Tygra." she said, offended. She had spent a lot of magic and concentration on that!

Besides, she didn't want to be away longer than they already were. 

"Can't you just make the material a little more… breathable?" he asked.

With a sigh, she held out Lion-O's armor to him. He took it and she withdrew her scepter. Turning her scepter over in her hand, she pondered how to visualise the matierial thinning out without fraying; it was an odd one. _Hm… maybe…?_ She raised her scepter with the thought and let out a soft breath.

Lots of breathable fabrics were woven thinly, and maybe a little loose, even if they fit snugly. She couldn't see much difference in Tygra's undersuit, but he sighed in relief. "Thanks, that's better."

"You're welcome."

He handed the armor back to her, all the accessories stuffed inside the cuirass. _Why didn't I think of that?_ It made carrying the armful a little easier.

They continued on for a couple more minutes before arriving at the mostly collapsed and filled-with-rubble building they had left Lion-O upon for his vigil. As they came into view, he impatiently leapt down.

Cheetara had returned already, beating them. No surprise there. She had a satchel that Leopara could see resting on the stone beside them, and piled atop of the stachel, a bundle of folded brown fabric.

As they joined Lion-O and Cheetara, she held out the armor out to him. Lion-O gave her a puzzled blink and reached his hands out to take it. He turned the cuirass over in his hands and slid out the bundled accessories, the shinguards and pauldron wrapped in the large belt.

"You need armor too." she said.

As she turned towards Cheetara, she could see him nod a little from her peripheral. "I found cloaks that will serve us well." She tossed them at the three with a snap of clothing in the wind. They were simple, rather hideous things of mud brown. With a despairing sigh, Leopara pulled on the cloak, raising her hood. She didn't want to cross the fields outside the wall without something to shield her from the sun.

While Lion-O busied himself putting his armor on, Tygra picked up one of the two satchels Leopara could now see and pulled it over his head and shoulder so it rested at his hip.

And then, he pulled on his cloak.

They waited while Lion-O finished with his armor. It fit him as a warrior… which he was now. He seemed pleased with himself, the way his armor fit him.

 _Good._ That was something, at least.

With all their cloaks on they began to walk down the main road.

Its stone path was shattered in several points, but pressed deeply into the ground by the weight of the mecha that had carried Mumm-Ra, disguised as Panthro, rolling over the tops of it. It was smashed, and broken, but it laid distinctly cutting through swathes of desolated, destroyed homes and led them all the way to gates. One side was missing completely, the other hung from only its bottom hinge, the corner planted into the stone.

Leopara dreaded seeing the bridge. There had been no fire here.

She could still remember the screams of the soldiers as they retreated, their shocked gasps as Slythe appeared in the gates, and the blasts of the explosions that broke it into three, littered with debris and bodies thrown and crushed and buried.

As they neared the gates, Leopara's ears twitched. A whisper in the wind caught her attention.

Maybe she was insane, but it sounded like a voice.

She turned, ears perked and swiveling. She scanned the debris, searching.

The others paused ahead of her at the gates. They looked back at the devastation. A couple of smoke plumes still arose from the wreckage.

"Did you hear that?" she asked them.

"No."

"It sounded like a voice. Maybe we should-"

"We're not stopping." 

Leopara looked at him, somehow gobsmacked. "What if it's a survivor, Lion-O? As king, your duties are to your people. We can't just leave if-" she turned her head away, looking out. Strong hands gasped her by the shoulders and she stiffened with wide eyes. Her heart skipped a beat unpleasantly and began to hammer.

"There is. No one. There." Lion-O growled, merely inches from her face.

"But, I heard…"

"Nothing!" he hissed.

She stared at him, shocked. She shrugged out of his hold and he turned, pulling his hood up in a snappy motion.

Without another word, he pressed onwards, leaping from one broken section of the bridge to the next. Tygra, and then Cheetara, each set their hand on her shoulder and squeezed before following. Leopara stood there, watching for a moment. She turned, looking out once more. 

_Say something._ she silently pleaded the voice, straining her ears to hear anything.

Silence.

Defeated, Leopara looked down at the ground. It hurt, but she took a deep breath and reluctantly followed the others, leaping from the crumbling edge and sliding along the collapsed part, before pushing against the short railguard and onto the next.

Lion-O hadn't even waited, although Tygra and Cheetara had. They fixed her with sympathetic looks. "Come on." Tygra said, leading the way after his brother.

She spared one last look back, a pang of regret piercing her.

She knew she heard someone… _Perhaps it was their dying words, and there was nothing I could do anyways._ Leopara consoled herself. She clung to that belief, wanting to cry but fighting the feeling.

_Eyes forward._

* * *

Winding through the fields, the road from Thundara was worn from wheel tracks and foots, and littered with destroyed lizard mechas on one side and craters on the other.

Amongst the expanse of rolling hills of green grass, rocks protruded. Beyond them, the treeline, and further beyond them, the mountains that cradled Thundera within the space between their sheer cliffs. Ahead of them, the first wall of Thundera, broken and crumbled.

As they approached a spot where the mechas formed an alcove, two kittens practically materialised. They hurried towards Lion-O, long-furred tails the color of cream, not too different from the rest of their fur, trailing behind them. He did not stop or look at him.

Leopara felt a little sympathetic as they hovered around him.

"I can't believe it! Prince Lion-O and Tygra to the rescue!" the girl exclaimed, looking up at Lion-O with awe. She had her two-tone reddish and purple hair tied back.

Leopara could not see her ears.

"Names are WilyKat and Kit," the boy eagerly introduced them, gesturing to himself and then the girl, "We thought we were the only cats left!"

Lion-O did not stop. The two, having circled around in front and then to his right without acknowledgement, slowed and watched in shock. Leopara stopped as the two looked at each other, glaring angrily at Lion-O. She hoped her gaze pierced him like daggers, forcing him to stop and acknowledge the two.

They could _not_ abandon children. 

Cheetara or no, she would not take one step further if he did. She would not follow a king that turned his back on his people.

Insisting she was hearing things amidst the ruined city was one thing.

These two were another. They were _right there._

But the two were persistent. They chased Lion-O down and she began to walk again. "Maybe we could join you until we get where we're going." WilyKit said. With a friendly gesture of her hands, she continued, "El-Dara, the city of treasure."

"Never heard of it." Lion-O finally acknowledged them. 

Leopara kept her stern gaze burrowing holes through the back of his skull. He barely turned his head towards them!

"Of course not!" WilyKat reached his arm back and rifled through his bag, withdrawing a rolled up paper. He looked very proud. "I've got the only proof!"

Lion-O craned his head more so he was actually looking at them. "No."

This stumped the two and angered Leopara. They paused, shocked their prince- nay, their _King,_ who was supposed to _protect_ them would turn his back on them so callously.

"Please?" the girl pleaded.

Tygra and Cheetara slowed to a stop with Leopara. She crossed her arms. Lion-O paused, sensing all of their displeasure. 

"We can't just leave them here." Tygra stated the obvious, gesturing slightly.

Lion-O's hackles practically rose. "We are on a mission to avenge our father and you want to play _babysitter?"_ Lion-O said incredulously. He turned away. "They're just going to have to take care of themselves, Tygra. Now let's go."

Leopara growled. "Take care of themselves?" she demanded. "They're cubs, Lion-O, and as Lord of the Thundercats, it is your _duty_ to protect them!"

It was, perhaps, a low blow to use his father's words against him.

But it was low to try and abandon cubs.

He stopped, stiff and rigid and a rumble of anger building in his chest. He whipped around, snarling. "Fine." he spat. The cubs recoiled in fright. A little more dignified, he said, "They can follow us. But we are _not_ going out of our way to take them anywhere."

"Fine!" Leopara agreed, straightening.

Lion-O whirled around, cloak fluttering aggressively behind him as he stomped forward. Tygra and Cheetara exchanged a look.

"Is he always like that?" WilyKit asked 

Leopara sighed heavily. "Only lately. Come on." she told them, urging them forward. They followed behind Lion-O several paces. "We're heading towards the Sand Sea."

"The Sand Sea?!" the two exclaimed in shock. 

"Is it on the way to your El-Dara?" she asked them. Looking embarrassed, they exchanged a look with one another. Leopara waited a moment. "You two _do_ know the way to this El-Dara, don't you?" She already knew the answer.

WilyKat rubbed the back of his head with a grimace. "Not exactly." he confessed.

"We don't really know where it is." WilyKit added. "But we're going to find it! And when we do, we'll have as much food as we want~!"

"And so much money, people will be begging _us_ for it!" boasted her brother.

It was very revealing.

Orphans, even before the attack. 

Leopara hummed, going along with their story. "Perhaps if we someday find the Book of Omens, it could lead you there~" She said this in a quiet voice, so it wouldn't reach Lion-O's ears. She didn't need to be reminded they were tracking Mumm-Ra and going to bury him and _blah, blah, blah,_ that Lion-O somehow believed would work in his favor.

It wasn't going to, if he rushed in unprepared like this. He would come to his senses if she had to argue with him every step of the way.

The cubs gasped. "The Book of Omens?"

"It really exists?"

Leopara nodded. "Yes, and it was my teacher's final wish that we find it." They marveled a little at that. "And someday soon, we will."

It was a hopeful vow that she made, but it was a vow she intended to keep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, everyone! Thank you for reading

The lands outside the walls of Thundera at the mouth of the mountains had always been rather… desolate.

Or at least, Leopara found them lacking in any interesting features.

It was just a wide and two-mile long stretch of short brown grass. The sun beat down on them, hotter than it had been in the earlier, and cooler, hours of the day. The ground was dry and dusty underfoot.

She doubted the grass was alive and if it was, it was a near thing.

In short, it looked like a drought had hit the land outside of Thundera's walls.

Maybe that was because they had built dams and lakes and aqueducts, so they never had to deal with a lack of water themselves.

They walked under the vengeful sun for about forty minutes. The kittens seemed completely wilted by the unrelenting heat bearing down on them. Leopara opened her cloak, pitying them.

She recalled Jaga had let her hide in the shade of his cloak, once.

It made her even more hot and exhausted to have kitten-burrs stuck to her side and a distinct lack of a breeze, but Leopara suffered it in silence.

By the time they reached the trees, the great forest that had been cut down from the walls of Thundera so any dangers could be spied from afar- and a lot of good it did the cats in the end- Leopara wanted to collapse in the shade with relief. It was much cooler.

But apparently, Lion-O wanted to keep going. 

She spared a moment to adjust her cloak, lifting it awkwardly to rest bunched and draped over one shoulder, allowing the gentle breeze to cool her body.

"Thanks, Leopara!" WilyKat called gratefully, darting forward into the trees. WilyKit chased after him and they leapt from root to fallen tree trunk to rock to whatever protruded over the uneven and mossy ground. 

Leopara sighed a little, envious of their enthusiasm and energy.

They continued trekking like that for days. Lion-O barely stopped for rest, and when he did, it was because Leopara, Tygra, and Cheetara argued with him for it. They would lay out their bedrolls in a cluster while Lion-O stubbornly sat by himself, curled into a ball nestled against a tree trunk in the crook of its roots, against a rise of dirt, or, foolishly, a stone. The kittens would curl up with each other on the cloaks.

Lion-O's bedroll went unused.

The lizards trail did not get any fresher as they followed.

There was no way they could keep up with the pace of their machines, and sooner or later, the trail would be gone. Where would that leave them?

As they pushed onwards, they passed many beautiful sights. An unusual ravine with formations of stalagmites and stalactites that supported the ground above. The land, parted by the ravine that snaked through like a river, had beautiful green grass that waved in the wind.

In the forest, they found a natural spring surrounded by lush life. Snarf and the kittens drank from it, while the four watched. Lion-O's gaze was, at best, indifferent, but more likely impatient and annoyed. Leopara, Cheetara, and Tygra watched with fondness, disregarding their irritable king to enjoy the little moments.

If they didn't, Leopara was sure one of them would snap and then they'd be lugging Lion-O around unconscious.

Well, now that she thought about it… 

They hiked through a beautiful, ancient wood with long and tall ferns that unfurled high above even Tygra's head. Sunlight barely filtered through the dense canopy above and the dirt felt pleasantly damp and cool underfoot.

Lion-O seemed oblivious to each beauty, made blind by his drive for vengeance.

Leopara didn't even know how he was navigating, anymore. They had lost the trail fairly early… although she supposed he was taking them to the Sand Sea on a hunch that Mumm-Ra's lair lay beyond it.

Why?

She had no idea.

She dreaded the moment the trees thinned out and a burning sun scorched the earth, cut by the wind. Tall, pointed spikes jutted from the earth at an angle. They were the only thing she could see for as far as the horizon stretched.

They weren't seriously going to travel out into that during the day, right? Even with their cloaks- which only the four of them had- that would be hot. 

Everyone knew to hide from the desert sun and travel at night.

Lion-O didn't care. With unflinching determination, he walked out onto the scalding, dry earth. 

Leopara stopped with a completely dumbfounded expression that Tygra and Cheetara followed him without pause. WilyKit and Kat paused in the shade, gulping.

"Sure seems hot out there…"

Leopara looked at them. A guilty pang of sympathy pierced through her. The four of them had cloaks, but the twins didn't. "Try not to stand on one foot for too long."

WilyKat tilted his head, puzzled. "Huh? Why?"

"Because that dirt," which was cracked and parched for water, "has been absorbing the sun's heat all day. If you keep your feet on them too long," she shouldered her bedroll, "you could get burns."

The siblings looked each other in the eyes and gulped loudly.

Pulling her hood up, Leopara reluctantly followed the others. 

The earth was scorching underfoot, even through her fur. It was her toes and heels, unprotected by her footwear, that suffered the most, but she did her best to follow her own advice. Ahead of her, she could see Tygra and Cheetara taking shelter under one of the spikes, and then hurry, although not run, to the next one.

The twins exclaimed at the heat and made like the two. 

_ Good idea, if Lion-O's going to be insane. _

Leopara followed suit, hurrying her steps to a half jog until she reached one.

The shade was a blessing, the dry earth delightly cold and refreshing.

They continued like that well into the chilly night. With nothing to hold in the heat, all of the day's warmth evaporated, and every insect and beast that hid during the day came out to hunt and creep once the sun set on the desert.

Lion-O gave it a rest when even the fire of his anger couldn't keep him from shivering, and WilyKit and Kat's chattering teeth had turned to cause for alarm.

They barely had the supplies to start and sustain a meager fire. 

They all rolled out their bedrolls and, somewhat begrudgingly, gave the Wilytwins the cloaks in exchange for Leopara's dusty blanket, which she shook hard. Specks of pale dirt scattered through the air. Satisfied it was cleaner, she laid it on her bedroll and made her way to Lion-O, who sat on his bedroll with his legs outstretched staring into the small, flickering flames.

"Give me your hand." she demanded, sitting on her knees beside him.

She expected him to fight, but he didn't. He held up his paw for her to take. Too relieved to question his compliance, she took it and closed her eyes.

It was hard to see the blossoms of pain, the spots in her vision...

It had been so easy that night, when they defended the lizards in the stockades from the protestors. She had been anxious and nervous all day, but she had been…

Empathetic.

Empathy, the ability to feel and conceptualise the suffering of others as one's own. It was one of the characteristics and skills that made healing magics possible.

It's absence in numbness and an amalgamation of pain made it difficult.

Like a thick, grey fog with spark of red racing through, misleading the lost.

She sighed heavily, shoulders slumping.

She couldn't see them. Lion-O's anger only assaulted the part of her that was intuitive enough to read his body language and see the emotion in his eyes.

"Sorry." 

"It's fine."

Leopara stood, looking down at her hands. Disappointment hung heavily on her.

She made her way to her bedroll and sat down. Cheetara pressed food into her hands. Her hands that couldn't heal anymore… not right now.

The thought of Jaga's quiet disappointment if he could see them, see _her,_ right now was enough that she felt her heart break again. Tears welled in her eyes, stinging even more harshly after a day of the heat drying out her eyes in a cycle. She raised her hand to wipe them away and gasped her sob as silently as she could.

Without looking at what the food was, she took a bite. She chewed it without tasting, and swallowed it down.

* * *

Lion-O had not learned his lesson from the day before.

Although his feet were surely blistered and sore, he marched them through the desert day. In the afternoon the landscape shifted. No longer were they surrounded by wind-worn spikes clawing through the earth and wide expanses of empty grown, but rather clustered rock formations, like a supersized cub had played with stacking toys and built them up passably, but they were all wonky and curvy in mildly alarming ways.

The sweltering heat was, somehow, worse despite the additional shade they provided. It surrounded them, kept in by the rocks. The air waved from its intensity, distorting everything in sight.

Eventually, exhausted and sweating heavily from the heat, they stopped.

Cheetara sat on a small rock, while the kittens collapsed on the ground back-to-back and panted. Leopara unclasped her cloak and let it unceremoniously fall to the ground behind her, and leaned into the underside of the formation that provided them with relative shelter. There, she stayed, panting against the dusty stone.

The brothers stood at the edge peering out, the ever faithful Snarf sitting at his master's feet.

"We've lost the trail, Lion-O." Tygra said, finally pointing out the obvious.

They lost it long ago.

Cheetara turned the bag upside down. It was empty, flapping vacantly as she waved it. "And our supplies are dangerously low."

Lion-O glared. He whipped his cloak a little as he thrust out his arm and pointed. "I don't care. We keep moving forward."

He turned and stride out into the heat. He's insane. 

Did he even know which way was 'forward' anymore? Did he have some special sense derived from his vow of vengeance? Or was it just the ground that lay before him?

The five of them and Snarf lingered in the shade, watching him in shock.

Leopara looked to Tygra. "This has to stop." 

As if to prove her point, poor little Snarf collapsed in the dirt, exhausted and heat stricken.  _ "Snya…. Na?" _

"What is that?" cried WilyKat. Lion-O bounded back towards them to look in the direction of Snarf and the kitten's gazes. Leopara turned her gaze as well. 

She had no idea how they had missed it.

A tall, and long, and  _ thick  _ wall of layered stone towered not so far from them. In its base, a hole was carved. On the other side, if Leopara's eyes did not deceive her, were waves of golden sand-water. They lapped against the beach.

"Snarf just found the Sand Sea." Lion-O said victoriously. "Mumm-Ra's lair must be just on the other side."

It was a scramble to get their cloaks back on and chase after Lion-O and the twins. 

"Do you see a way around it?" Tygra called.

Leopara looked. The sandy waves stretched the entire length of the horizon. They continued towards the waves, slowing to a stop. Leopara raised her hands in front of her cloak, shielding away even more of the sunlight.

The kittens gasped.

"I think I see something even better!" WilyKat called out to them all, pointing into the waves.

Leopara followed his finger.

Floating atop the rolling gold was a pile of fruits and ribs and haunches. It looked like a small feast!

"Food." Lion-O said, confirming they weren't the only ones seeing it.

Logic leapt out the window as Leopara's stomach growled and twisted, sending a stab of pain through her body. She exclaimed in relief and excitement. The others cheered and they all began to praise that there was food. Then, like a pack of hyenas, they waded out into the waves and set upon the food. They tore into fruit and pieces of meat like they were starving already- which it certainly felt like.

"Hey." Cheetara interrupted after a few bites of her fruit. She regained her senses first. "Anyone else wondering where all this came from?"

Leopara straightened and the others looked around. "Yeah, now that you men-"

The sand-water erupted around them as a net pulled shut around them all, interrupting Leopara uproariously. They all shouted and, Leopara was only slightly embarrassed to admit, screamed, as they soared through the air, uncomfortably squashed and-

They crashed hard on a wooden deck. All the breath left Leopara's lungs and she groaned while Lion-O began to growl deeply.

As she regained her senses, she looked around frantically from under Tygra and the kittens' crushing weight.

Fishmen, tall and slender with too-long arms moved in, first four, then more. Their toes were webbed, and so were their fingers. A fin lined each of their heads, traveling down their shoulders as far as she could see whilst craning her neck to look around Tygra.

They smelled damp and musty.

"Quite the catch, I'd say." said a koi of white with red splotches, in an accent. She didn't know what accent, but it was… odd. He peered down at them with large green eyes.

She and the others struggled and strained against the net and each other, but it was of no use. Tygra's ammunition belt dug into Leopara's gut, something she did not appreciate. One of the Wily twins knees dug into her thigh and the other's elbow into her side. Her leg was tangled with Lion-O's and she could feel Cheetara's ankle-weight jab into her hip.

_ Oh, this is a perfect mess. How are we supposed to get out of this? _

_ "What's all that racket?!"  _ a voice shouted. Leopara heard the sound of water dripping, pouring, and heavy footsteps. She craned her head back to watch, world upside down, as the pale head of another fishman arose from the lower deck. Whiskers of red sprouted from his chin, and one blue eye was permanently shut. "That better be the ramlak you spineless jellyfish are carrying on about."

Her first thought should probably have been,  _ the what?  _ But it wasn't.

Her first thought was,  _ rude! _

She heard a mystifying  _ wheeze  _ every time the fishman took a step. Until, she saw it. His left leg, like the rest of his body looked torn and ragged, had been replaced by a peg leg with dark bellows between the golden stump and the peg itself. Leopara gawked at it, dumbfounded.  _ What the-? _

The fishman left a small trail of water as he approached them. He eyed them with disdain and disinterest. 

"Another worthless haul." he said as a fat, red fishman with a golden ring in each whisker approached, eyeing them greedily. "Take what the crew doesn't eat of them, and turn it into chum." The way he said it was very nonchalant, not in the least concerned he was suggesting to eat fellow Animals and not beasts.

The red fishman, dressed in filthy clothes and an off-white apron, grinned with delight and scraped his skinning and butcher knives together while chuckling low to himself.

_ That's terrible for sharpness.  _ She observed blandly. _ He's not even going to be able to make it a neat, clean cut. _ Leopara thought dully before her mind caught up and rebelled. She was  _ not _ going to get eaten, especially by a stupid  _ fishman  _ with  _ no _ sense of hygiene or to keep knives! 

"Whiskers." Lion-O breathed.

The other fishmen strode forward, half of them with harpoons and the other half with rope. "Now, let's get you chum all untangled~"

Leopara hissed as one reached into the net. If he didn't smell of stagnant water growing mold and algae, she would have bit him then and there. Instead, she laid back her ears, and struggled to grasp the net underneath. If she could just pull her cloak to the side, she could then grab it and use her magics to fray the ropes as she had before-

The fishman picked Tygra up by the torso and another maneuvered her and Lion-O's legs to get them apart. She shut up with an embarrassed and grossed out whimper. 

_ Don't think about it. _ she told herself, feeling cold, slightly slimy residue seeping through her footwraps and sent shudders up and down her spine.

Lion-O protested, "Hey!" sharply. 

With Tygra's weight off of them, the twins tried to scramble and cut through the net, but the fishman dropped Tygra back onto Leopara- she gasped in strangled pain as his elbow drove into her gut and all the air was forced from her body like the cheeks of a kitten holding air being pushed in.

"Sorry." grunted Tygra, also trying to get up, but having great difficulty with Leopara and Lion-O and Cheetara, and all their cloaks.

Leopara groaned.

At least he moved his elbow from her gut.

Cheetara was pulled out of the net after the kittens who were rounded up and tied together with rope. Cheetara, being the clever and quick cat she was, yanked herself out of the grasp of the fishman. One quickly threw themselves on top of Tygra, barring any attempts from them to escape or be cut free while they corralled Cheetara.

It was a lucky rope that caught her around the ankles as she charged forward across the deck she had just crossed, tripping her. They hastily pulled her across the slippery wood and tied her up with the kittens.

After she was secured, the fishman got off the pile and they easily pulled Leopara out after lifting Tygra again. He tried to punch the fishman through the net, but the ropes were just taught enough, being pulled the other way to create an opening, that his fist was stopped about a whisker from the fishman's stupid, slimy face.

She was too winded to put up much of a fight, so she didn't.

They forced Leopara back onto the deck next to the kittens and they kept a hold of the three while expanding the ropes to include her. Lion-O followed, to Leopara's right, and Tygra was last, tied between Cheetara and Snarf.

All of them sat on the deck back to back, tied up and a little battered, still hungry, still tired, and now without cloaks and surrounded by cat-eating fishmen pointing harpoons at them.

It was a great day and an accomplishment Lion-O was sure to be proud of.

Her plan to free them was still a go- in fact, this worked to her advantage. She remained calm while the others strained against their bonds.

The captain, she surmised, began to speak again, having watched in silence as his crew rounded them up and tied them together. "That bait was meant for the beast." he sounded quite aggrieved.

"I am Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats and I order you to release us!"

The captain recoiled with a, "Huh?" And then the crew and captain exploded in uproarious laughter. "It talks! And it's still got some fight in it! Well," he leaned in with a mad look in his eye and what passed for a smug smile, "-Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats, I," he pointed his thumb at himself, "-am Koinelius Tunar, Captain of this ship, and I order you flayed."

The cook scraped his knives again.

"Let's start with the little ones. Their meat will be the most deliciously tender~" He grinned.

The kittens shuddered in horror.

Leopara grinned darkly at the cook as he continued sharpening the knives.  _ You're going to pay for that. _ she thought.

A boom sounded against the side of the ship, rocking it hard. All the fishmen were thrown from their feet and she blinked. She didn't do that… did she? The ship rocked again and the captain staggered.

A long vine whipped onto the deck, slithering towards one of the red fishmen. It picked him up around the ankle and raised him high in the air, whipping him back and forth before pulling him, screaming, down into the golden sand-water.

Several more, giant tentacles of dark green, studded with green bumps that turned red near the tips, reared up out the sand-water.

_ I definitely didn't do that _ , she thought. 

"Ramlak! At long last my wretched quarry returns!" the captain exclaimed.

The beast moaned loudly, the sound carrying over the waves and crackling of the ships thrusters.

_ Thrusters? _ Fishmen had technology?

Leopara shook her head. Now wasn't the time to think about that. A tentacle slammed into the deck, breaking the deck. The fishmen shot harpoons at the rearing tentacles while Leopara shifted and got her hands on the rope. 

"Reneo!" she whisper-shouted.

The rope began to fray and spin and unravel where she touched it. The course strands struggled and snapped. 

They were free!

They all lept up and scattered across the deck.

All the same, the green tentacles whipped across the deck, searching. Leopara cried out in shock and alarm as it hooked around her ankle, grabbing her. It slithered up, coiling around her midsection and squeezed hard as it lifted her in the air.

Leopara hissed and squirmed, trying to slip free, or get a hold of her scepter, but she struggled to move her arms, elbows pinned to her sides by the immense strength of the ramlak. If she could just…

It tightened around her, tensing.

_ Oh no. _

From afar, with a crack of thunder and flash of lightning, she heard Lion-O's warcry;  _ "Thundercats, ho!" _

Omens hummed and sang in her ears, and a calm clarity filled her. She turned her palms up and touched the tentacle, envisioning in her mind the sinew and muscle unraveling quite like the rope, undone by an invisible force.

And it did.

She fell gracefully, landing in a crouch before running towards Tygra and Cheetara. She swung her scepter from afar, channeling that feeling again. Her well of magic surged as Lion-O swung Omens and freed the twins. The cutting wind from her scepter cut clean through the arm holding Cheetara and Tygra.

Water spilled from the thrashing stumps as the two landed on the deck.

Across the way, she heard the captain exclaim,  _ "The food's fighting better than you!" _ to his useless, huddled crew. Leopara rested on her knee for a brief moment, catching her breath. Omens had stopped singing, and the focused exhilaration from its song left her. _ "That's it, boy-o, show this cowardly crew how it's done." _

The ramlak groaned and more of its tentacles slithered onto the deck.

She had never successfully used magic like that before. Her focus had always wavered. Lightning would fizzle out, water and wind would disperse harmlessly. She looked down at her scepter. Could she do it again, even without the power of Omens thrumming through her?

Leopara prepared herself, locking her gaze onto a tentacle that raced towards the twins. She crossed her arm over her chest diagonally, preparing for an upward slash that would send the wind hurtling towards it-

She drew from her wellspring of magic, deep inside, and thrust it into the scepter, it's jewel flashing and swirling mint-green, and swung. The mint green flung from it into a thin sheet of near-white. It raced the distance, leaving a long cut in the wood- a brief feeling of excitement ran through her. It was… working! Actually working!

It dispersed once it hit the tentacle, nothing more than a gust of wind.

Leopara balked. 

_ Whiskers!  _

She had lost focus.

Another one wrapped around her leg again and yanked her off her feet. Her scepter clattered away from her across the wood, and the tentacle pulled her with alarming speed towards the railing.

Leopara cried out, digging her claws into the wood to try and resist its pull and break free. Her body jolted as her claws pierced into the damp wood.

And then, with a forceful tug, she lost her grip.

The sound of a blaster,  _ byew!  _ and a flash of green as Tygra shot it with expert marksmanship freed her. 

"Thanks!" she called, scrambling to her feet and lunging for her scepter. 

The rocking of the ship sent it rolling one way, then the other. She staggered, off balance. A tentacle whipped it away, all the way across the deck.

Leopara raced after it, jumping over a tentacle with a stumble in her step as she landed, and sliding under another. She snatched her scepter as she slid by, but crashed into the wall. She sat there, dazed, amongst the crates. 

Snarf nuzzled her hand with a cold, wet nose.  _ "Snya?" _

"I'm okay." she reassured him after a moment, climbing to her feet.

The ramlak groaned and its tentacles rose up, and began to descend back into sand-water whence they came. The captain ran to the railing awkwardly with his peg leg and sheathed his sword. He slammed his hands on the wood. 

"Run, you coward!" He shook his fist. "You can't escape me forever! I'll follow you straight to the flaming pits of," and Leopara was unsure if she heard correctly, "magmel before I give you up!" Koinelius raced and vowed.

_ You certainly will. _

They all gathered angrily behind Lion-O, she, Cheetara, and Tygra. Leopara had her arms crossed, but Cheetara and Tygra held theirs still. 

Lion-O took a few steps forward, demanding in a hard voice, "Now, what were we talking about before the interruption?"

The tides had turned on the fishmen.

"I believe we were discussin' how we'd flay you," he stepped in close to put a hand on Lion-O's shoulder, "But had I known you were such fine warriors, I would've gladly served my own firstmate to you on a platter."

The white and orange koi gasped inaudibly, stunned.

Leopara scowled, disgusted.

How could he talk about cannibalism so mundanely? As if they were discussing the consumption of beasts!

_ Hmph! _

She didn't like this Koinelius one bit. It was apparent he was filled with anger and vengeance, apathetic to those around him and lacking in morality. As long as he got his prize in the end.

The ramlak.

Damn any who got in his way or fell behind, right?

_ "We're not stopping." _

_ "We're on a mission to avenge our father and you want to play babysitter?" _

The wind howled as he turned to his crew, a motley, ragged, miserable lot, and raised his arms. "Listen up, fishies," he announced, "these fine fellows are our new shipmates. So treat 'em like you would your own scaly brothers." He turned and looked at WilyKit and Kat. "And fix the little ones some food." Koinelius grabbed Lion-O by the shoulder and walked him away.

"Food!" exclaimed the twins in united delight.

Leopara kept her arms crossed, watching Koinelius lead Lion-O across the debris-littered deck of the devastated ship. Torn tatters of the sail flapped in the wind and were carried away.

She didn't like those two together. 

Not at all.


	7. The Ramlak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again everyone! I intended to upload this chapter in May and roll on into Song of the Petalar, but things happened and this chapter was... uncooperative. It's not my favorite and I definitely feel I rolled out of my writing groove, but nonetheless I hope you all enjoy and leave a review~ I love hearing from you guys!

_Leopara kicked her legs as she sat in her chair, waiting with barely restrained impatience. "Jaaaaagaaa,." she complained. "You said we were going to practice magic today- proper magic!"_

_Jaga looked at her with a fond smile, stroking his long white beard as he contemplated aloud, "I did? Hmm…"_

_"Yes!" she exclaimed excitedly shifting in her seat to sit on her knees and straighten up. She barely came to Jaga's chest that way. "You did! You said during our walk, 'Leopara, I believe you are now prepared to begin simple conjuring.'" she quoted, mimicking him in a deep voice._

_"Ah, I recall now." he said in a tone that suggested he remembered all along, resting his hand atop her head gently. "But perhaps we should focus instead on discipline."_

_Leopara wilted, sighing instead of groaning. She'd been given only exercises for the mind for_ years. _She was ready for more! But… if Jaga said otherwise…._

_"Yes, Jaga." She shifted in her seat again, sitting cross legged, and reached into her pouch for her leaf. She stared at it, so green just like the day Jaga had plucked it from its tree. Her eyes began to automatically trace its veins when Jaga chuckled, ruffling her hair._

_"Before we begin with simple conjuring, you must clear and focus your mind. You will always have to practice and exercise discipline and patience, for both are wasted if not used." he explained with a gentle smile._

_Leopara blinked up at him, a surprised flutter of excitement in her chest. Instead of bursting with excitement, she nodded. "Thank you, Jaga."_

_He smiled again and turned away._

Frustration roiled within her.

While Leopara and Cheetara were set to the back breaking work of sweeping the deck, the rest of the cats occupied themselves with nothing at all.

Lion-O was getting chummy with an insane fishman that Leopara _knew_ was only going to fan the flames of his anger and deepen his thirst for revenge. Tygra had taken residence over the railing of the ship to feed the fishes- if there even were any in the sandy waves- while the kittens were being fed _by_ a fish.

Even more annoying, most of the crew stood around with expressions like their heads were resting on platters instead of their shoulders: vacant and useless.

Leopara ground her teeth as she pushed the broom, sweeping up the debris from the deck. The bristles caught and snagged on the wood, a grating sound as splintered wood scraped against wood.

"Why don't I feel good about this?" Cheetara asked herself aloud again.

 _Because this is menial and our king's madness is being encouraged by an insane fishman._ Leopara thought, gaze turning to the crow's nest, where she could see Koinelius and Lion-O looking out over the rolling waves of sand-water. If she strained her ears reaching up towards them, she swore she could almost hear their voices, quickly stolen away by the wind. She flicked her ear, frustrated. If only she knew what they were saying exactly… not that it would do her any good.

"What do you think Koinelius's vendetta with the ramlak is anyways?" she asked Cheetara.

"I don't know." Cheetara straightened and followed her gaze. "But I get the feeling things are only going to get worse."

"I couldn't agree more."

The first mate approached them again, looking around the deck where a couple of the only fishmen to join them in the endeavor were sweeping up the remaining debris- rather poorly, she might add, and succeeding really only in spreading and scattering the splitters and bits all over- then back to them.

With a raised fist, he gave them a thumbs up.

Leopara took that to mean the deck looked good.

"How are you doing?" he asked in that slow, vaguely stupefied voice of his; he always sounded like he was about to receive a shock, and maybe he was. Maybe it was shocking that she and Cheetara actually knew how to sweep.

"We're fine." answered Cheetara blandly.

 _Fine?_ Leopara resisted a sigh and shook her head, flicking her ears in agitation. "We were just wondering why your captain is hunting the ramlak." Leopara said in a light, musing tone of voice, like she wasn't fishing for information.

 _If we're going to have to clean this stupid deck for a stupid captain that tried to eat us, I_ will _know why._ she thought, her ears flicking back at an angle and a deep furrow forming as she knit her brow. She quickly perked her ear up and swiveled it towards him, forcing her expression to relax.

Not her most convincing display of innocent curiosity. By far worse than any she had ever used on Jaga.

_Jaga..._

He blinked his fishy, green eyes at her in surprise. Then, he looked out over the sandy waves sadly.

"We used to have an oasis home out there. But the ramlak drank it dry, and took the captain's leg and so many of our people…" He turned his head down, shoulders sagging and eyes closed. Sadness radiated from him, blue and like drops of water clinging to a stalactite before falling; ever present, continuous, and building higher. "The Captain has been hunting it ever since."

Leopara's gaze drifted towards the crow's nest, where she could see Lion-O leaning out with a telescope, his attention on the horizon, where purple clouds darkened the skies. The sadness that she had felt was drowned out by rising anger.

She thought of the absent expressions of the fishmen, the scream of the one that got dragged into the depths. All for a pointless crusade that wouldn't return their home or families to them.

"It doesn't seem like the rest of the crew shares his feelings."

The first mate gaped at her like, well, a fish out of water. But he said nothing in protest, instead looking down with guilt and regret. Would that be her, Cheetara, and Tygra, years in the future? Still following Lion-O, obsessively hunting Mumm-Ra with hatred and anger- they themselves tired and filled only with sorrow?

Leopara took another look at the crew, some milling around doing very little, others cleaning dolefully. They weren't useless… they were tired, and defeated, and abandoned by hope of a better future.

Her anger before, roiling waves crashing against black nothingness, ignited into a spark, a fire of rebellion.

She refused to let this be her fate.

A crash of lightning into the sandy waves jolted her out of her ruminations. Her attention snapped towards the brewing sky as another flash of lightning stuck. The smell of freshly spun glass reached Leopara's senses as churning sand turned into thousands of drops of molten glass quickly cooling as they were flung from the waves below.

The putrid stench of the Ramlak hit her second and drowned out anything else. Its moan carried over the crashing waves and bolts of lightning.

"Quit flopping around, you lazy lumps! The chase is on!" Coinelius called down from the crow's nest.

Leopara exchanged a glance with Cheetara as the first mate scrambled to answer his captain's call. He sprinted towards the front of the ship. As the fishmen quickly stirred to panicked action, they each blinked, gold and pink locking gazes. _What should we do?_ they both seemed to ask each other.

Leopara shrugged helplessly.

The crew scrambled to grab their harpoons as the tattered sails flapped and strained in the wind, but neither she or Cheetara moved.

Unhurried footsteps sounded from behind them as Leopara watched the ramlak's tentacles squirm in the air. Was it… lounging in a thunderstorm? Maybe it was hoping for rain. Leopara sure was. She was _sick_ of these deserts and this nonsensical sea. What were the waves?! If they were sand, why did they move like water? If they were water, how could there have been an oasis? Why didn't the sand separate from the water and sink to the bottom?!

Leopara glanced over her shoulder, where Tygra stood, staring out at the ramlak with a firm expression. There was a _pitter patter_ of metal as Lion-O and Koinelius hurried down the ladder from the crow's nest.

"Don't you have business with the railing?" Leopara asked Tygra scathingly, crossing her arms.

He glanced at her with annoyance. "We have more pressing matters at hand right now."

Leopara turned on him, one hand holding the broom the koi had handed her, the other on her hip. She raised her hand only to tap him on the chest. _"We_ have been busy this entire time while you did nothing. You are _so_ _not_ getting off the hook for leaving all the cleaning to Cheetara and I." Cheetara gave him a crooked smile, a dangerous glint in her eye as she also rested a hand on her hip.

"Fine, fine!" Tygra heaved an exasperated sigh. A shrill moan from the ramlak resonated amidst the cacophony of wind and thunder. "But we can worry about that later!"

"Hmph." Leopara turned away.

He was right, of course. She just had to make sure he knew his time spent over the railing wasn't going to be accepted with grace. Oh no, he'd be dealing with camp whenever they got off this _stupid_ boat and out of the Sand Sea.

Lion-O and Captain Koinelius finally got down from the nest and rushed past them, running straight for the bow of the ship where the first mate was looking through a looking glass. Leopara wasn't sure what more he expected to see that he couldn't see with his own eyes.

"Thunderstorm just blew in, straight ahead!" the koi called unhelpfully as the two reached him. The ramlak's moan carried across the waves as it dove into the sand. "I suggest we go around it!"

"Tell us something we don't know!" Leopara shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth to carry her voice. She didn't know if her words reached him. Cheetara reached up and gently lowered Leopara's hands, shaking her head. "What? We've been in it for minutes now!"

Koinelius pushed his first mate out of his way, looking out over the waves. "And lose the ramlak's trail? Full speed ahead!"he ordered, shouting over the roaring waves.

"But captain, we'll never survive!" The first mate tried to reason.

He was probably right, but Lion-O didn't care either. He shouted as he ran to the helm, "The only thing not surviving is the ramlak!" Arriving, he pushed the fishman out of his way and took over the wheel. "Into the storm we go!"

The ship strained and echoed the groans of the ramlak as Lion-O spun the wheel. Lightning flashed in a rhythm further within the storm, a constant crashing sound.

Despite herself, Leopara gaped at him, dumbfounded.

"Lion-O! This is madness! What are you doing?" Tygra called.

Lion-O turned towards them, his face contorted with anger. His eyes were wide with a mad look, and their blues so dark and dull. "Not letting anything stand in my way." he growled. "Not a storm, not _you!"_ he yelled, face twisting more.

Cheetara stared at him with a slack face and wide eyes. Tygra looked taken aback and shocked.

Leopara felt anger rising. The winds grew stronger as they sailed deeper into the storm and lightning struck around them in abundance, more and more. Not even a second went by between each crash. The striking, like cymbals being smacked together in a constant cacophony of noise, pierced her ears, Ahead of them, the winds swirled with debris.

Stones?

Or maybe giant chunks of glass, lifted from the sandy waves mere moments after being struck.

And Lion-O was steering them right towards that swirling vortex. The winds howled and warbled in warning, fiercer as the ship plunged onwards. Her hair whipped to and fro, coming undone from its bun. She reached up, snatching her hair pin, Jaga's staff, and clutched it tightly for a moment before tugging it loose. Her mane unfurled, long strands whipping her in the face as she clutched the staff tightly to her chest.

Her mind raced. _What should I do? What to do? He's going to get us killed!_

… _and we will have not accomplished anything!_

Koinelius's peg leg wheezed as he climbed the steps to the helm, looming beside Lion-O. _There, the influencer._ "Faster! Faster! I can taste its foul breath on the wind."

"Captain, please!" Cheetara shouted, her voice piercing Leopara's ears sharply. "The ship won't survive long in this storm!"

"It's time to turn back." Tygra reasoned.

"Before you get us all killed!" Leopara added, thrusting out her arm and gesturing all around.

The laughed. "Ha ha! I see you're as soft as the rest of the chum on this ship. Come on, lad, it's you and me!" Lion-O turned his head to look at him and smile ever so subtly, a glint in his eyes Leopara didn't like.

"I'm right beside you," he said in a low and rough voice, letting go of the wheel, "Captain."

"Lion-O!" Leopara exclaimed.

It was too late. He and the Captain ran to the front. Leopara twisted her arms and pushed Jaga's staff into her backpack, running forward to grab the wheel before it could spin. Part of her wanted to turn it, hard. But the ship was being bombarded by the debris; turning the ship would only expose more of it to be struck, making it that much harder to protect and easier to tear apart. She looked back at Cheetara and Tygra, mouth agape and hair snapping in the wind. "What now?! Lion-O's lost it!"

They exchanged glances, both unsure.

Over the wind, she could hear the ship's cannon power up and begin blasting the debris from the sky. She looked ahead. Lion-O stood on the bow, slashing at any rock that came too close to the ship with Omens, yelling with each slash.

 _"Isn't it exhilarating?!"_ Koinelius called to him, laughing.

Lion-O leapt onto the browsprit, cutting down even more rocks- an unnerving laughter reached Leopara's ears as she clung to the wheel and fought with it to keep it steady. 

_"Ha… haha! Don't forget to save some for the ramlak!"_ She stared, almost able to make out the fine details of his crazed, euphoric expression.

 _"Snya…"_ Snarf contributed.

 _This is what I was afraid of!_ "Tygra, what do we do?" Leopara repeated, looking back at him and his shocked expression.

He was quiet for a moment. "We should prepare ourselves."

Leopara nodded and stepped back from the wheel. With a deep breath, she held out her hand, visualising her well of magic and drawing from it, then pushing the magic out against the wheel. Opening her eyes, she saw blue threads wind and pull around the wood, halting it in place mid-spin.

With several cracks of thick lightning striking ahead, the ramlak groaned and began to rise from the depths, watery sand cascading off of its deep green tentacles. Slowly, it's elongated, bulbous purple body began to rise, thin near its mouth, lined with wriggling purple tentacles, growing wider like a jug going down. "It's surfacing. Now's our chance!" Koinelius called.

It towered over the ship, far larger.

The fishmen stood there, gawking. They had their harpoons, but did nothing. One thick tentacle slammed into them, crashing into the deck and breaking it again. "I just cleaned that!" she yelled, reaching to her belt to withdraw her scepter.

Koinelius helped Lion-O back to his feet and ran back to his cannon. He fired blast upon blast at the ramlak's purple body to no avail. Lion-O ran forward with a harpoon, but quickly lost it, batted out of his hands by another tentacle, he drew Omens and lashed out in front of him as he ran forward.

The fishmen climbed to their feet as Leopara, Cheetara, and Tygra leapt down smoothly. Cheetara darted forward, smashing a tentacle. Tygra fired his pistol. Leopara focused, a burst of anger making her magics bubble over. She swung her scepter.

A long and thin sheet of wind erupted from her scepter, racing towards the arms of the ramlak. It cut deeply through the deck, water from beneath bursting through the cracks, and yet more water spilling and gushing from the severed limbs.

 _I didn't lose focus that time!_ she thought proudly.

She swung again, severing another, and leaving another long cut in the deck. The ramlak had a thick arm wound around the deck tightly.

A fishman was yanked forward as he pierced one with his harpoon. The thrum of the cannon firing, _brru, brru_ was a constant noise. The ramlak wrapped around one of the masts and snapped it in two. The broken mast fell onto one of the spheres protruding from the deck, spilling clean water across the deck.

Leopara readied another blade of wind when Cheetara darted in front of her. "Leopara, stop!" she exclaimed, stumbling a little.

"Stop?!"

 _"Take out the arms! Then we go for the head!"_ Koinelius called, his voice distant and almost lost over the winds.

"You're destroying the ship!"

Leopara balked at her with offense. "I am _not!_ The ramlak-" the wood cracked and crashed next to her foot. She jumped, looking in shock at the deck behind her, cut so cleanly.

Cut.

 _What, how?_ She traced it with her eyes, following it towards the tentacles, and then back behind her.

It was almost all the way through the ship!

She couldn't have done that! ...could she? Leopara looked down at her scepter. The gem whirled with chaotic mint green energies. From the movement of her swaying as the ship rocked under the force of the ramlak, it left a pale trail of wind.

 _Oh no…_ every time she had swung, it had begun even before she even meant to release its power. Her winding and following motions...

"I- I didn't mean to!" she shouted. Her words were lost with the wind.

The ship groaned more and split further, sliding lopsidedly as the ramlak wrapped its arms around. Cheetara leapt up as water burst forth over the sliding deck, but Leopara lurched forward, stumbling, and fell into the railing with such force her breath was knocked out of her- and her scepter fell from her fingers. She scrambled, trying to catch it.

Scraping against her claws, it descended into the sands below. It bobbed atop the sands, suspended there- rising and falling with the waves, sand splashing onto it. A little less of it visible with each racing heartbeat. Leopara stretched, willing it back to her.

A wave of sand finally washed over it, pulling it down.

"No!" she cried, hands still out-stretched.

The ship lurched and she quickly scrabbled to keep a hold of the wood, digging her claws in until the wood splintered her fingers.

Tears welled up in her eyes automatically. _My scepter…_ it had been hers for years, an extension of herself.

The ship careened dangerously as the ramlak wrapped more and more around it, breaking it a task made easier by her recklessness. Below her, the waves beckoned hungrily. As the hold burst, the water, foul from stagnation, splashed against Leopara, soaking her. She gagged, almost retching, but she was not washed away with the debris.

The ship lurched again and screams filled the air as the fishmen were thrown from the ship and into the sea.

And finally, the ship, which had been dragged down by the ramlak, came apart into pieces. Leopara let out a scream as she held onto the railing to keep from tumbling down the slippery, broken deck. Lightning continued to strike all around, crashing and thundering like the clashing of cymbals.

For a moment she felt like a kitten clinging to Jaga's side after he demonstrated lightning to her, an example of how powerful and dangerous magic could be. How she needed to be careful, needed to be calm when she used magic or it could spiral out of her control just as it could fizzle into nothing.

_I'm sorry, Jaga. I should have been careful._

Lion-O stood across the distance, holding onto the railing as well as he looked down at them all. There was horror in his face.

Koimelius stayed in the cannon. _"What are you doing?!"_ he demanded of Lion-O. He stood, grabbing a harpoon. _"Don't stop now, lad. Its end is nigh!"_

_"The crew, they're going to drown!"_

_Now he's concerned._ she thought sardonically. She wanted to laugh bitterly or cry. _But not when we told him this was insane!_

She caught Koinelius's cruel words in snatches over the wind. _"Never mind them. We can always get a new crew._ _We finish him now, before he submerges again."_

_"Isn't it the crew we're fighting for?"_

A crash of lightning right near Leopara left her ears ringing and her vision swimming with light. She whimpered a little, closing her eyes tight and hugging closer to the railing.

What could she do? She'd lost her scepter and she couldn't stand to do anything at this angle…

She couldn't do anything.

"Everyone, over here!" Lion-O called out. Leopara cracked open her eye. They were so far away- the waves were pushing them apart. She swallowed and looked down at the waves lapping at the wood. She knew how to swim. She could swim. But could she swim that distance? Her arms burned from holding herself up, from holding so tightly to the railing.

The others were near him. They swam to him, onto the broken masts he had leapt onto. "Wait there!" he yelled to her.

"O-okay!" Leopara called back.

He aimed a harpoon and fired. It soared through the air while she looked around for the ramlak or Koinelius. Both were gone, and, as she watched, the skies cleared as if by command. The harpoon pierced through the deck and Lion-O planted himself firmly on the masts.

And began to pull, dragging himself and the others closer. As they neared, Leopara shifted and grabbed a rung lower on the railing, carefully beginning to lower herself, arms shaking. When the wood of the mast bumped into the piece of the ship, she let go and let herself slide down while the fishmen eagerly scrambled up the deck.

Lion-O dropped the harpoon, which went between the overlapping masts, to catch her by the shoulders. She pushed her hands against his chest to steady herself.

"You steered us into quite a storm, Lion-O." Cheetara scolded Lion-O lightly. Leopara stepped back and crossed her arms, frowning.

"I lost sight of what was important, and for that," he bowed his head with shame, "I'm-"

A groan from the ramlak, once again, interrupted them. It burst from the sand, two long purple tentacles from its mouth lashing forward. Snarf screamed, while Leopara thrust out her hand. Her barrier flickered, it's watery form manifesting only to dim and fall in droplets. _No! Why now?!_

The tentacles wrapped around Lion-O and yanked him forward.

"No!" she and Cheetara shouted. Leopara lurched forward, trying to snatch him. She didn't even come close to grabbing him.

"Lion-O!" called Tygra

"Give him back, you slimy sack of tentacles!" shouted WilyKat, raising his fists at it.

Lion-O was pulled inside its mouth. Leopara gaped in horror shared by them all. After a dumbfounded pause, she angrily exclaimed, "Hey! He was apologising! Put him back _right now!"_

 _"That's_ what you're mad about?" Tygra asked with exasperation.

She shot him a withering look, snapping out of it before she could respond. A shadow loomed over them. The ramlak towered over them, tentacles circling its mouth wriggling. Abruptly, Omen's familiar song resonated with them and she blinked. The ramlak groaned in pain and discomfort, rearing back. A bright glow illuminated it's long body and then-

The Sword of Omens burst through, slicing down. Water poured and gushed from inside as Lion-O leapt from it, landing on his feet. The water poured out in a waterfall and rain, drenching them all.

 _"Our water!"_ one fishman called.

 _"We got our water back!"_ cried another.

An uproarious chorus of cheers burst from the fishmen as the ramlak deflated and deflated, pouring out enough water to flood as far as she could see. Miles of it. She raised her hand, feeling the droplets against her fur, washing away all the dirt, the dust, the gross bilgewater before. Leooara sighed and turned her head back, feeling it on her face.

The fishmen had their oasis back.

But her scepter was gone.

She looked at Lion-O after a moment. "Now, you were saying something before you got eaten?"

"Yeesh," he remarked, "you're really not going to give me a break?"

"And why would I do that? Tygra isn't getting one either." Tygra let out an aggrieved sigh.

Lion-O and the twins blinked at her while Cheetara smiled. "What did Tygra do?"

"It's what he didn't do." She pivoted to face Lion-O better, jabbing him in the chest. "But this isn't about that."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright! I'm sorry for the way I've behaved. You didn't deserve it and… all of you were right."

Leopara smiled. "Maybe you should listen to me once in a while, King Lion-O. I _am_ your advisor sorcereress."

"Since when?" he scoffed.

She balked in offense. "Since I was groomed to be!" She pushed at his face, smooshing his cheek, but he just laughed and batted her hand away.

* * *

The sun was setting beautifully on the oasis by the time they were prepared to leave the fishmen. "We better get moving before the sun sets." Tygra called to Lion-O, manning the little boat the fishmen had given them.

Cheetara smiled at Lion-O smally as he turned away from the first mate. The koi nodded and waved to them, and made his way back down the sandy beach to his fellows.

"So, what orders do you have for your crew?" Cheetara asked.

He faced them completely, each of them waiting in the bobbing boat. He had a stern and determined expression. "Set our course for the Book of Omens." he said.

Cheetara saluted. "Aye aye, Captain." Leopara shook her head affectionately, bumping shoulders with Cheetara.

"And what shall we do with these two stowaways?" asked Tygra.

WilyKit and Kat, as if a signal had been given, turned on their cute charms, purring and _nya_ -ing at Lion-O. He eyed them seriously. "I said I'm not going to babysit. It's a good thing they've proven they can take care of themselves." With that said, Lion-O waded into the sandy waves.

"Yahoo!" the twins exclaimed while Leopara smiled at Lion-O. She held out her hand to him and helped pull him aboard.

They smiled at each other for a moment before he made his way to the steering.

Leopara sat back and looked out at the horizon.

It was beautiful, like the first rays of sunshine after a long storm. Even the sandy waves looked pretty, reflecting the sun's light in a dazzling array of colors.

The kittens fell asleep quickly, leaning against each other. Tygra moved towards the back of the boat as Lion-O stepped forward to take over, and sat with Cheetara were in their own little world, murmuring to each other- words she couldn't hear over the din of the propeller and waves. Snarf dozed heavily in her lap, purring and snoring softly while she gently stroked his dark crimson fur, idly musing of how Jaga would have felt about the two and watching Lion-O's back.

He was... unwavering.

Whatever he put his mind and determination to, she knew now what it would take to make his focus waver. It reassured her, somehow; whatever quest he set out to accomplish, he would. And all that could move him from his goal was... them. Everyone on this little boat.

She knew he would find the book and, maybe... he would defeat Mumm-Ra with its knowledge within. 

Leopara sighed softly, smiling to herself as she drifted into sleep.

It was easier than the nights and weeks before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to Kharybdis!


	8. Into the Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited previous chapters to match their ffnet counterparts, removed verbal commands from Leopara's magic and associated dialogue, and removed her hiking clothes so she is still in her dress. Remember to check out my tumblr @allurasgrace, where I've posted a reference sheet for her!
> 
> I also added a a little bit to the last scene of chapter 7~

Leopara sighed softly as she sunk down in the roots of a tree.

Nearly a week had passed since they disembarked from the oasis, and days since they left the Sand Sea behind them.

She was glad, really. They had supplies; foodstuffs, a water purifier, canisters for water, and fortune had them traveling along a river for most of their journey westward. A steady supply of fish, caught mostly by Cheetara and Tygra, and berries, foraged by Leopara with the twins, had kept them well fed. They had lost their tarps and cloaks, but they would make do without the extra protection.

Everything should have been fine- better, certainly, than the weeks before.

Their determination had been renewed, she could _sense_ and _heal_ again, and Lion-O had redirected his efforts toward finding the Book of Omens, just as Jaga had told them. He had been so unwavering in his quest to defeat Mumm-Ra...

Leopara sighed again and brought her knees close to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, dropping her face into them.

He was so, so tired. In the absence of his anger, doubt now clung to him now. It dampened his fire, burning so hot it was hard to look.

And he wasn't the only one.

She could sense and heal, and she could conjure a barrier, but that was all she could do, wasn't it? When she tried to do anything else, it… it…

Well, she had lost her scepter. That explained her capabilities as a sorceress well, didn't it?

She clutched at her shins.

 _It could have been me._ No. _It should have been me._

Jaga would have been able to get through to Lion-O all those weeks of travel. They would have the Book of Omens by now. He would never have lost his focus, he would never have lost his staff; the only reason he was ever parted with it was because he chose to be.

And now that was all she had of him. His staff.

No, that wasn't right. She had the leatherbound journal, too.

"Not you too." 

She startled, looking up at Tygra. His amber eyes were filled with exasperation and disappointment, but seeing her look at him, he approached and knelt down to be at eye level.

"What are you sulking for?"

"I'm not…" she started to protest. She stopped herself before Tygra could even arch his eyebrow at her in challenge. "What do you want?"

He met her gaze evenly. "Besides the obvious?"

"Are we talking about the crown?" she snapped, ears flattening. "It's quite obvious how you feel about Lion-O's leadership."

Tygra took a deep, calming breath to keep his cool; she could feel anger swelling against self-restraint. Was it his? Was it hers? Was it both? Did she know? No. "He wasted our time chasing Mumm-Ra, almost got us all killed, and now he mopes everywhere we go."

"He's still moving forward, Tygra." she defended Lion-O.

"I can't believe you're defending him." He sounded genuinely offended. "You protested his decisions the most."

"They- they were _bad_ decisions! I wasn't going to just let him- or _anyone-_ abandon _kittens."_

Tygra shifted to sit on the root proper, crossing his arms. "I wouldn't have tried abandoning them."

She crossed her arms and sat up on her knees. "Oh really? What would you have done?"

"I would have made Lion-O stay with them."

_"Lion-O?"_

Tygra nodded. "Your healing magics and barriers are too valuable, and you saw through Mumm-Ra's guise. Cheetara is a trained fighter with experience and good instincts. Lion-O's a cub playing at swordplay." She stared at him, shocked. "It's the duty of the royal family to protect our people. But," he stared into her eyes, "you never answered my question."

Leopara opened and closed her mouth for a moment. "You _really_ think you would be a better king than him?" He shrugged, declining to answer. "You could spend the energy you use criticising and tearing him down to build him up to be a better king, a- a better _leader,_ someone you'd be proud to stand by. Why- _why?"_

His neutral expression turned into a frown and he straightened. "Whatever you're moping about… get it together. We don't need you _and_ Lion-O slowing us down." Without waiting for her to say anything at all, he stalked away. Anger made his movement stiff and rigid.

She didn't try to stop him from leaving.

Instead, she just stared after him.

Doubt clung to Lion-O in the place of anger, but anger filled Tygra in the place of mourning, and he let neither emotion deter him from what he considered to be his duty.

He was just quite a bit more… abrasive in his anger.

She let it wash over her and inspected the emotion with scrutiny. It was old and twisted, tangled with new tempers.

Leopara took a shaky, deep breath as his presence faded, and the anger trickled away with him. She slumped back and lifted her hand to her face.

_Why did I say that?_

_"I knew it! WilyKit loves the froog!"_ WilyKat shouted from somewhere to her right, beyond the campfire they had started hours ago to cook dinner.

His sister's voice carried over the distance in protest. _"No. I. don't! You dared me!"_

Despite herself, her lips curved into a small smile.

_At least someone's having fun._

She stood and brushed herself off, watching WilyKit chase her brother through the trees, and approached the clearing as they ran past her legs unapologetically.

The sadness grew heavier as she grew close. She paused, ears pricking at the sound of Lion-O's voice. "I- I know it sounds dumb," he rambled quietly, "but I… I thought he would live forever. He gave his life and for what? We have nothing left." 

Leopara's heart tightened, a sharp piercing pain. She knew his feelings, not just as his own but as hers. But she had been afraid Jaga would die, and she would be alone-

"We have the sword. We have each other. But most importantly, we have hope." Cheetara rebutted him in the most gentle voice, as though she was trying to cradle his wounded heart with sound. It would be the softest embrace, the warmest and safest cuddle.

-except she wasn't alone, not completely. She had Cheetara.

"Do we?"

A pause. Snarf interrupted the quiet with a, " _Snyarf!"_ Leopara heard a thud and snapped her attention to the clearing, peering around the tree she settled against to listen.

Snarf clambered atop Lion-O's red mane, a fact his master didn't seem too pleased about. "Are you kidding me? Now?" he exclaimed angrily. With a roll of his wrist, he demanded, "This better be very important, Snarf."

She stepped into the clearing as Snarf hopped down into Lion-O's lap, scrabbling at his chest frantically. _"Snya, sna, snyaaa!"_ he babbled. Reaching out across emotions, she could feel fear from him and immediately reached out, physically, to scoop him up from Lion-O. _"Sna snya."_

Cheetara leapt from where she sat, taking two steps and bounding into the nearest tree branch that would support her. Lion-O followed, then Leopara with Snarf clinging to her shoulders, and finally Tygra and the twins. They all crouched low to the branch, as if afraid to be seen from such a distance.

In the distance, a swath of destruction- a dark trail of fallen trees, illuminated only by the eerie green lights of the lizards' mechas. It was a straight path leading directly to them.

"It's the entire lizard army." she told them. It couldn't possibly be the entire army, Leopara thought; the force at Thundera had seemed far greater, and why would the entire army start chasing them _now?_ "Just say the word, Lion-O."

Lion-O glanced away, quiet. "No." He looked once again at the lizards. "If we stay here, we die." 

He stood.

So did Tygra. "Thundercats do not retreat!"

"With a situation this hopeless, I'll make an exception." Lion-O reasoned. 

"Hope comes from action." Tygra argued while they watched. "Isn't that what Father told us?"

Lion-O bristled with anger, teeth gritting. "And what happened to him?!" he demanded. Leopara frowned. "Now come on." He turned and lept to the next branch, expecting them, with certainty, to follow.

And, once again, they did. Even Tygra, even as heated as he was.

They lept from tree to tree, fleeing the army bearing down on them, until the forest opened into a clearing, or what would have been a clearing if it were not filled with a dome of twisting, gnarled brambles that would have engulfed the royal quarter of Thundera with its size. She turned towards Lion-O, ears straining to hear any commotion behind them.

Alas, the lizards were still far enough away that she couldn't hear them. 

Lion-O pointed. "They won't be able to follow us in there."

"You're asking us to what?" Tygra bristled all over again. "Hide among the brambles waiting for the lizards to just go away? This is not how we're going to win this war."

Lion-O met his brother's gaze. "I'm not asking," he stated. 

He jumped down, chased by Tygra's retort, "You may be king," Leopara hopped forward with Cheetara and the twins, but his words still carried down, "-but I'm still older than you!"

_"Snarf!"_

She stumbled as she landed, nearly dropping Snarf who lept from her arms nonetheless to chase after Lion-O. Cheetara paused, waiting for Tygra. Leopara hurried after the pet-cat and the twins, who were simply in want of safety and shelter.

Lion-O waited for them at the entrance into the bramble he had found; a conveniently sized gap that, effectively, formed a tunnel funneling them inside. He entered after her, with one last look over his shoulder at the treeline, as if he expected the lizards to burst from it at any moment, and quickly made his way to the front with the Sword of Omens when the tunnel narrowed, and then ended altogether.

Leopara didn't know how long they had been cutting a path through the bramble- minutes, an hour?- when her ears caught a faint sound. They perked up, straining to hear better.

It sounded like… singing? Voices raised together, wordless.

She moved closer to Lion-O, standing on the tip of her toes to strain through the brambles. More brambles.

"What are you doing?" Tygra groused.

"Shhh, I hear something." she hushed him, reaching back to gesture behind her. They all paused for a moment, listening.

Tygra crossed his arms. "I don't hear anything."

Cheetara crowded forward calmly. "I do. It's faint…" she trailed for but a moment to listen more. "What is that?"

"It's singing!" Leopara exclaimed softly, quietly.

"Singing?" Lion-O murmured.

They continued onwards, not quite quick enough for Leopara's tastes. One swing, then another, a third, and then a fourth- the brambles dropped into the dirt to reveal a clearing amidst the mess and tangle.

A dozen small faces whirled to look at them, gasping in horror and clinging to each other with green arms like leaves. They shook and quivered as they, the cats, loomed over them.

They stared silently, shocked.

A little one, with hair like purple petals crawled through the crowd of...leaflings? It looked up at them with wide eyes. Leopara expected another gasp, but instead, it blurted, "What are you? I've never seen people like you before." And before they could blink, it had run up to them, jumping up a tendril besides Lion-O's foot. "Are you from the briar? What's that in your hands? Did you make it?" It slid down a small vine in front of Snarf's face. "You're not the same as the others. Are you some kind of pet?" On a branch, question after question. "Do you grow from seeds like us? What's that red crystal?" It pointed. "How tall are you anyway? Why are you covered with hair?" It pulled at its purple petals. "What kind of- mmf-mm-mf."

"Okay, slow down." Lion-O interrupted, holding his pinky finger in front of the plant-creature's mouth. "You sound like me when I was your age."

The others chuckled with Lion-O, but Leopara stared at them with a furrow to her brow. Did he know what age the leafling was? When the other leaflings joined in on their laughter, she shrugged and smiled.

Just like that, the tension and fear dissipated. The leaflings, who she would learn were called petalars, quickly ushered them into the clearing and crowded around them with barely contained curiosity and enthusiasm. After a sufficient amount of gawking at them, a petalar stepped forward, with green-blue petals atop his head and a blue wrap about his torso.

"You've already met young Emrick. We are the Petalars." He raised his leaf-like arms to gesture around. "We come from a far-off paradise called The Garden. One day, long ago, a great disaster befell our people. A terrible wind like none recorded in all our history whipped through our homeland and swept up the entire Petalar race, carrying us across the sky and bringing us here to Briar Woods." His expression saddened. "And here we have remained, stranded, for generations."

"Generations?" Tygra repeated with surprise, and none of the anger he aimed towards his brother. "Is this place so big that you couldn't find your way in all that time?" 

It had seemed quite large… could she have underestimated its size? Or, she supposed, it would be- was- difficult to navigate through.

Emrick excitedly bounced up with a yellowed leaf. Crude, dotted lines had been drawn on it with a sun in the upper left corner, smiling down at the tangled mess depicted beneath it. 

"But, we've got a map. It's very, very old and it will lead us out of the Briar to the Cliff of Winds." Her brow furrowed as he explained. It couldn't be that old; it wasn't browned at even the tips. "If we can find it, we'll be able to ride the winds all the way home."

Lion-O reached forward, gently plucking it from the two children.

"We'll help you," he promised softly, "and together we're both gonna find a way out of here, Emrick. I promise."

The petalars broke into a merry cheer.

Leopara looked at him, confused. Were they… lost? _I thought we came in here to hide…?_ Wouldn't leaving be as simple as picking a direction and cutting a path out?

Emrick ran forward, grabbing onto Lion-O's red fringe and swinging. "Hooray for Lion-O! Hooray for Lion-O!" he exclaimed with joy.

"Seems like Emrick's found a hero." Cheetara commented softly.

Tygra watched for a moment before dismissively saying, "Hmph. He's too young to know better."

Lion-O laughed as Emrick hopped onto Snarf.

Leopara looked at Tygra and Cheetara. "Are we… lost?"

She must have looked quite puzzled, because Cheetara chuckled at her and reached forward to brush her stray bang from her face. 

She didn't, however, receive an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Don't be afraid to leave a review, I don't bite~


	9. Out of the Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a lot of time debating how I wanted to approach the rest of this episode... I think this worked the best.

_ "Time is relative. ... The Petalars' entire existence seems to pass in the course of a single day. But from their perspective..." "It's a lifetime." _

"Are we making any progress?" Cheetara asked.

"If the map is meant to lead us into every single thorn bush in the briar, then yes, we're doing great." came Tygra's sarcastic reply.

It felt like they had been walking for hours with the petalars, going in a giant circle. They glanced about the mass of tangled trees around them as they walked, desperately trying to identify any landmark on the petalars' map.

Leopara couldn't fathom their seriousness.

She wanted to help them home, of course. If she had control enough of her magic, she would create the gust of wind herself… but she didn't know where their garden was, and her winds would be even more ephemeral than winds naturally were, if they didn't accidentally cut the petalars into pieces instead of carrying them away from this place.

But the map had only one- no, two- distinguishing marks on it: the Cliff of Winds and the sun. The dotted lines they were supposed to follow wandered in tight twists and turns sprawled across the expanse of the leaf.

She couldn't fathom their seriousness; it was so painfully obvious the path on the map wasn't  _ the  _ path. It wasn't a real map, but rather that which a cub might draw. How was it supposed to lead them anywhere? Did its destination even exist? If the Cliff of Winds truly did exist, and the petalars had known where it was, why did they leave it? Did their ancestors catch a glimpse of it as they were swept into the briar wood?

It didn't make sense to her.

But she didn't say anything, either.

She turned her attention away from Tygra and Cheetara, and turned it towards Lion-O behind her. He trailed behind the line of petalars with Emrick.

He was always with Emrick.

She smiled as she watched. Emrick slashed the air with his little green sword, mimicking the teachings Lion-O had bestowed upon him just earlier.

Since meeting Emrick, Lion-O had been… lighter. His doubts lessened, soothed. When she reached out to his emotions, she felt a spark of hope, light optimism. It was so fragile, it had to be cradled. She didn't want to take that away from him. He  _ needed  _ this. She needed the Cliff of Winds to exist, for his sake.

The sun began its descent towards the western horizon when the second petalar collapsed on their journey through the wood. Their body fell apart into leaves and petals, gently carried into the sky by an unseen wind.

She felt the claw of despair wriggling its way back into Lion-O before she had even turned to look at him. He was alone now, Emrick no longer by his side, his expression crestfallen. 

She frowned.

"What's the point of it all?" he wondered to himself. "Kingdoms rise and fall, lifetimes come and go. Are any of us here long enough to even make a difference?"

Before she could reach him, a voice spoke up. Emrick. "You sound like an old man talking like that."

"Emrick?" 

The purple-petaled petalar approached him, his thin blade sheathed at his side. "With so many great adventures ahead of us, we still have a chance to make our marks."

Lion-O watched him bittersweetly. "Yes, my friend." he agreed. "Many adventures, I hope."

Leopara smiled as she watched them.

Lion-O didn't realise the irony of his question. Emrick had been in his life for less a day, and yet he was leaving quite the mark on him.

Emrick stopped in his tracks, looking at something ahead of Leopara, in the direction of Cheetara and Tygra. "It can't be." he murmured. He sprinted past Leopara and lept into the air, neatly snatching the leaf-map from Cheetara. He held it up, studying it, before lowering it again. "This is it, the gateway to the Cliff of Winds!" He turned towards his fellow petalars and announced with a gesture. "Once we get through this pass, we'll be free!"

The petalars erupted into cheers.

She blinked a couple times- _ the map… actually led somewhere?-  _ before smiling and gazing at Lion-O. He grinned. "Then let's go."

The petalars surged forward ahead of them and funneled into the gateway tunnel. Leopara stayed back with the others, not wanting to accidently squash any of the petalars and content to watch them herself.

A faint rustle sounded from behind her; her ear flicked and swiveled towards it, listening.

Nothing. 

She shook her head a little and looked to Lion-O again. He was beaming.

He took a few steps forward.

A gun fired.

"Lion-O!" she and Cheetara exclaimed. She ran forward to his collapsed body, dropping down onto her knees, while Cheetara- Leopara heard hoarse groans tear from both Tygra and Cheetara. She snapped her attention away from Lion-O, looking up just in time to see the thick lizard tail swinging at her.

She couldn't move fast enough to do anything about it.

It connected with her head, smacking her over, forward and across Lion-O. She lay there, dazed, as electricity crackled and the Wily twins cried out.

More lizards stepped forward, quietly hissing with their every move. 

"You were fools to try and outrun your fate." a thin, lanky one hissed, holding a pistol in his hand. 

"Outrun this!" exclaimed Emrick.

He ran forward with his leaf-blade drawn and ready- and was promptly tail-whipped with such force he was sent rolling away, out of her vision. She could faintly hear him speak, but not his words. Not until, "-for ages to come!"

The petalars gave a rallying war cray behind them, in the tunnel.

She heard them charge out, their quiet footsteps as loud as they would ever be. In the next moment, the air was filled with pollen so thick and dense it was a cloud of yellow haze, getting into the lizards' eyes and sinuses.

They took the distraction and chaos to make their move. Cheetara lept up with her staff and smashed one in the face. Tygra bounded up and body-checked another. Leopara rolled off Lion-O, sneezing hard and covering her face.

"Huh? You can't fight what you can't see." the thin, lanky one announced.

"We can take care of that!" shouted WilyKat and WilyKit. She heard a splatter as fruit hit him. He growled at the twins, who offered only a giggle in return.

Lion-O stood, drawing the Sword of Omens. "I can see you now." With an effortless slash, he cut the lizard down.

Emrick lept onto his body. "Charge!" he called, gesturing to the gateway.

The petalars charged through, followed closely by the Wilytwins, dropped down into a crouch to fit through the small space.

Leopara sneezed again, eyes watering, and followed.

The tunnel was cramped. They, the bigger cats, had to crawl on hands and knees to fit inside the tunnel for it was so short. They scooted along until finally spilling out of the gateway.

Into a clearing empty save for the thick vines of thorns strung across the grown, and furled plants at the far end.

"Uh," WilyKat began, "there's no cliff here."

WilyKit stuck her finger into her mouth and held it into the air. "Or winds. Just more woods."

The high spirits of the daring petalars were crushed all at once. Confusion crept in as they wandered further into the uneven clearing.

Leopara stood, brushing herself off, and looked up. Unlike the rest of the woods, she could see the sky clearly from here. It was evening, the sun was setting and painting the sky a beautiful orange. She reached for Jaga's staff, running her thumb over the wood. It thrummed with magic, ancient and strong.

She didn't know where their garden was or how far her winds could- would- carry them, but she could create the winds now. It would be easy, safe, to send them up from here.

She glanced around as the setting sun's rays grew fainter. Lion-O slumped against one of the vines, Tygra sat beside him on it with the map in his hand. Emrick hovering at his elbow.

"Maybe I misread the map." Tygra wondered.

"Or maybe there is no Cliff of Winds. Maybe the map is a lie. But why?" Lion-O wondered.

Emrick spoke up. "Perhaps our ancestors wanted to provide us with hope. Hope so we'd never stop looking for our way back home."

"Is that all hope is then? An illusion?"

Leopara stepped forward, kneeling by his side. "Lion-O-"

Emrick gasped, looking up at something. They followed his gaze up above the Briar Woods. 

Smoke.

And through the trunks of brambles, they could faintly see an angry orange glow, griwing brighter and hotter.

A fire. The lizards had set fire to the briar!

It was on instinct they lept to their feet.

"Things are about to get a little more hopeless." Tygra commented unhelpfully.

"We have to retreat. Again." Lion-O told them. He turned and took only a single step befire Emrick got into his way.

"No, we must go toward it."

"Toward the flames? Are you crazy?"

Emrick walked towards the furled plants. "Can you feel it, Lion-O? Do you know what this is?"

Leopara watched. As the flames burned closer, Emrick's hope blossomed more. The tall, curled plants began to unfurl as they grew warmer, releasing green pollen that sparkled like the embers beginning to fall. The pollen rose up in the air, carried high by the heat of the flames.

"An updraft from the fire. It's creating wind!" exclaimed Lion-O as realisation dawned.

The petalars gasped.

Emrick met Lion-O's eyes. "This is why you never give up hope." He turned towards the outstretched stalks and flicked his sword into the air above him. "We're going home!" 

There was little cheering, but the petalars' excitement was palpable nonetheless. They hurried towards the stalks and began to file up them, up the longest which stretched all the way to the top of the Briar Wood. Leopara cupped a couple of the children and with a steadying breath, blew a small gust to carry them higher up than she could reach. They giggled as they ascended, and it was with great nervousness that she watched them land- gently, unharmed.

Tygra glanced at her, annoyed. "You could have done that the entire time?" he asked.

She shrugged. "They would have gotten snagged on the canopy, and winds dissipate so easily…"

He shook his head a little as they both crouched down, picking up more little ones.

Lion-O wandered away, his attention caught by something. Leopara followed him with her eyes as he approached an elderly petalar with purple petals.

"Hurry, there's not much time… literally." he said softly.

The petalar fell to the side in his cupped hands. With a start, she realised it was Emrick. His voice rasped quietly as he spoke to Lion-O, words she couldn't make out and didn't dare to.

"Emrick?" Lion-O's voice shook as he said his friend's name. She heard Emrick's weak voice again, and Lion-O murmured to himself, softly, "A blink of an eye…"

Emrick's voice rose a little. "In the end, what matters isn't how long we've lived, but how fully we've lived." The petalars who had been waiting to climb began to approach and gather around Lion-O and Emrick. "The good we've done, the friends we've made, the love we shared along the way."

The gathered petalars began to sing, the same choral song she had heard when they first entered the briar. It was beautiful and sad and hopeful all at once.

Sadness welled in Lion-O, but it mixed with happiness; bittersweet. "I'm sorry I didn't get you to The Garden." he apologised softly.

"It's the journey, Lion-O. Remember that." With a sigh, Emrick's body came undone. The petals of purple were carried into the air as Lion-O watched, stricken. Up into the night sky they swirled; beauty in death. 

WilyKat and WilyKit let out a couple quiet cries.

Leopara finally dared to move forward, crouching down to her knees to rest a hand on Lion-O's shoulder. Without taking his eyes away from Emrick, he raised his own hand to set over hers with a grateful squeeze. Then, he stood.

"It's time to go home." he said quietly.

The bustle of helping the petalars climb resumed, until every last one drifted away on the breeze. They watched for a few moments.

In that time, the flames spread even further, encircling the clearing.

"So what now?" Tygra asked.

"We can try to find another way out of this briar." added Cheetara.

Hope soared in Lion-O, carried as high as the petalars by the flames. "Retreat? Thundercats never retreat." He turned to face them. "I say we face the lizards and hope for the best."

Leopara wanted to be as proud as Cheetara felt in that moment, but her stomach sank like a heavy stone. It was suicide. They couldn't hope to destroy all the mechas they had glimpsed earlier, before being killed and while dealing with the foot troops. Maybe if she were a stronger or more powerful sorceress- but she  _ wasn't. _

If they died, who would stop Mumm-Ra?

"We're all leaves passing in the wind, here and then gone." He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he lifted his left arm and grasped the hilt of the Sword of Omens. "But while we're here, we live to the fullest!" He drew his blade with a booming,  _ "Thunder… Thunder… Thunder... Thundercats, ho!"  _ he shouted, thrusting it into the air.

A beam of red shot out from the Eye, racing into the night sky to shine a visage of the Thundercats' emblem; the roaring silhouette of a cat-beast from old times.

It was a horrible idea, but they charged through the flames, briefly snuffed and dispersed by a hard swing from Cheetara's staff to clear them a path.

The lizards didn't expect it. The foot soldiers were nearest the briar, and they were quickly cut or shot down by Lion-O and Tygra. Cheetara raced into the thick of it and, with a powerful and swift stroke, took out a circle of lizards with a strong gust of wind.

Leopara pushed forth a barrier from Jaga's staff as the lizard mechas opened fire on them. Their cannonfire boomed against the barrier, muffled from the other side. It was an onslaught. One, two, three blasts, repeating. Four, five, from all around. They began to fall back. Tygra kept firing his pistol, but Leopara didn't split her focus to see if his shots found their marks.

Rapid gunfire joined the cannons as the foot soldiers marched on them. The ground shook as the cannons continued.

She focused, pouring more of her energies into holding the barrier. The lizards outside began to circle around them, firing and firing.

When she dropped the barrier, they would be dead.

"There are too many of them." Lion-O said. It sounded almost like an apology.

Tygra spoke next. "Father would have been proud of your bravery, Lion-O." 

"A glory I'm honored to share with all of you."

Tears welled in Leopara's eyes. Glory?  _ Glory? _

"My service to the crown has always been a cherished privilege." Cheetara added. 

The mechas marched forward, closer and closer. As such a short distance, there was no way her barrier would stay intact when they fired. "I'm sorry." she croaked out as the tear slipped down her cheeks.

There was a blast, but it wasn't the one she was anticipating. A flash of light erupted, bursting into flames as it struck one of the mechas and knocked it off balance.

More blasts, flashing and arcing through the air. They seemed to come from everywhere, assailing the mechas and foot soldiers from every direction at once.

"What is that thing?" Cheetara voiced their thoughts aloud.

Leopara nearly collapsed from relief, shaking. But she stood her ground and focused on the barrier. It wavered and was non-existent in patches, but it still stood.

Their rescuer raced around the battlefield chased by a cloud of dust, turning tightly to face the last mecha standing and fire directly at it. It exploded, along with the lizardmen surrounding it.

And the rest- the rest scattered, running terrified into the forest.

She actually dropped down to her knees this time, the barrier flickering out of existence, as the…  _ machine  _ approached with a low, steady hum.

"I hope that's on our side." WilyKit said, shaking.

It stopped just a couple yards away from them. As they watched, the machine hissed and a hatch opened. The silhouette of a tall, thickly built- Panthro?

Either a very brave or very stupid lizard lunged at Panthro, only to be batted away like he was nothing by his pair of nunchaku.

"Who are-" Lion-O began to ask, cutting himself off. "Panthro?"

Silhouetted by the moon, he smiled down at them.


End file.
